Podcasts about being loved

SUSTAINABLE, SIMPLE, SANE: God's Solution for Overwhelm part one- priorities Jesus said, “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 NLT Because Jesus created us, He's the only one who can help us live a sustainable, simple, sane joy producing life. HELP BEGINS WHEN…. 1. WE STOP DENYING 2. SAY ‘NO' BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU SAY ‘YES' Every YES is a NO to something else. 3. DO WHAT MATTERS BECAUSE WHAT YOU DO IS WHAT MATTERS Priorities of God: First, Being Loved by God May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Ephesians 3:17-19 (NLT) “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10 NIV Second, Loving Others Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6:21 NAS “So don't worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and He will give you all you need from day to day if you live for Him and make the kingdom of God your primary concern.” Matthew 6:31-33 NLT

In this week's episode, we conclude our three part series on the heart and  Pope Francis' recent encyclical Dilexit Nos. We reflect on Scripture as a personal love story, how it speaks to our areas of weakness, and the awesome reality of Jesus desiring to love and heal us there. The Lord meets us where we are and He is always seeking to bring our hearts closer to His. He speaks directly to each one of us with an invitation to be loved and to love. This invitation of love requires a response not only in big moments but in the ordinary moments of each day. Heather's One Thing - Her friends Laura and Brandon Sister Miriam's One Thing - Farkle Classic Dice Game Michelle's One Thing -  Nazareth Organics (especially the Sleep Balm) Michelle's Other One Thing - The Florida State vs UNC game   Other Resources Mentioned:  “Dilexit Nos”: A brief guide for busy readers Dilexit Nos audio version   Journal Questions: How do I experience spiritual amnesia and forget the ways the Lord loves me? When have I experienced the tender love of the Lord in places of poverty and isolation in my heart? Where in my life do I need to hear the sweet sound of the Lord's heartbeats? What does Jesus want to convey to me through that sound? What parts of Christ's Body, the Church, do I fail to love?   Discussion Questions: How has the Lord being present to your heart brought you healing and communion? How has the barrage of tragedy and hardship from the news and social media hardened your heart toward human suffering? Where are the lukewarm places of your heart? What conversations can you have, actions can you take, or apologies can you make to love your neighbor like Christ?   Quotes to Ponder: The pierced heart of Christ embodies all God's declarations of love present in the Scriptures. That love is no mere matter of words; rather, the open side of his Son is a source of life for those whom he loves, the fount that quenches the thirst of his people. (Pope Francis, “Dilexit Nos”, Paragraph 101) Saint Augustine opened the way to devotion to the Sacred Heart as the locus of our personal encounter with the Lord. For Augustine, Christ's wounded side is not only the source of grace and the sacraments, but also the symbol of our intimate union with Christ, the setting of an encounter of love. There we find the source of the most precious wisdom of all, which is knowledge of him. In effect, Augustine writes that John, the beloved disciple, reclining on Jesus' bosom at the Last Supper, drew near to the secret place of wisdom. (Pope Francis, “Dilexit Nos”, Paragraph 103)   Scripture for Lectio:  “I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.” (Hosea 11:4)   Sponsor - Leanne Bowen: Today's sponsor is Leanne Bowen Fine Art. We love her prints and her candles. These candles smell so good and burn super slowly. She just released a beautiful collection of candle tins that are the perfect size for stockings and hostess gifts! She has a new image of the three wisemen on a Frankincense and Myrrh candle. Her candle scents are really unique and the artwork on the labels make them very intentional gifts. Her most popular candle in November is the Cranberry Orange Spice. It has a stunning image of the Holy Family on the label. She also has a Chrism Sacred Heart candle that smells JUST like Chrism! Leanne also offers Christmas cards of the Holy Family, Saint Nicholas, the three wisemen, and Mary holding Jesus. She is offering 15% off to all our listeners with the code ABIDE15 at www.LeanneBowen.com. We think you'll love her stuff!   Timestamps: 00:00 - Leanne Bowen 01:33 - Intro 02:26 - Welcome 05:10 - Scripture Verse and Guiding Quote 06:26 - This is a Love Story 08:17 - Thirsting for God 10:30 - God Will Never Forget You 12:29 - Being Loved in Our Weaknesses 17:38 - Deeply and Individually Loved 19:42 - A Lament and a Request 22:42 - Loving Like Jesus 25:01 - Repairing 29:26 - Final Thoughts 30:36 - One Things  

19th June, 2024 – Join us every Wednesday morning at 8.30am for the Breakfast Show hosted by Fr Billy Swan. This show seeks to engage listeners with lively discussions on the Sundays readings and how all the baptised are called to evangelise the culture in which we live. The content is prayerful, reflective and yet […] The post E333 | RM Breakfast Show – Fr Billy Swan – Abiding in Love: Embracing Christ's Presence and the Beauty of Being Loved appeared first on Radio Maria Ireland.

There are things in life, which are simply not OK - death, destruction, loss, betrayal, murder, rape, abandonment, torture, defilement, disease, infirmity … and the list goes on and on. Where do we go and how to handle life, when things are not OK? Join me for this important message! Stay connected with Catherine: Catherinetoon.com FB: Catherine Toon, MD IG: @CatherineToon Watch on YouTube: Catherine Toon, MD (like & subscribe for more!)

God is Love and created everything, especially His kids in Love. Love is not just what God does, but is the truest expression of Who He is. We were created in the image and likeness of Love, to be loved and to love. We are marked by Love: the essence of our true identities. Join me as I share this life-giving message. Stay connected with Catherine: Catherinetoon.com FB: Catherine Toon, MD IG: @CatherineToon Watch on YouTube: Catherine Toon, MD (like & subscribe for more!)

It is not a sexy thing to talk about sin in our culture. Understandably, if you were brought up as a child or in the church with an overemphasis on sin with condemnation and fear of punishment, talking about sin can be a real trigger. The temptation, however, is to fall in the opposite toxic ditch and say, there is no such thing as sin or that, since everyone has sinned, it is not a big deal. We need clarity and real help! Join me for Part 3 of this enlightening and helpful message! Stay connected with Catherine: Catherinetoon.com FB: Catherine Toon, MD IG: @CatherineToon Watch on YouTube: Catherine Toon, MD (like & subscribe for more!)

It is not a sexy thing to talk about sin in our culture. Understandably, if you were brought up as a child or in the church with an overemphasis on sin with condemnation and fear of punishment, talking about sin can be a real trigger. The temptation, however, is to fall in the opposite toxic ditch and say, there is no such thing as sin or that, since everyone has sinned, it is not a big deal. We need clarity and real help! Join me for Part 2 of this enlightening and helpful message! Stay connected with Catherine: Catherinetoon.com FB: Catherine Toon, MD IG: @CatherineToon Watch on YouTube: Catherine Toon, MD (like & subscribe for more!)

It is not a sexy thing to talk about sin in our culture. Understandably, if you were brought up as a child or in the church with an overemphasis on sin with condemnation and fear of punishment, talking about sin can be a real trigger. The temptation, however, is to fall in the opposite toxic ditch and say, there is no such thing as sin or that, since everyone has sinned, it is not a big deal. We need clarity and real help! Join me for Part 1 of this enlightening and helpful message! Stay connected with Catherine: Catherinetoon.com FB: Catherine Toon, MD IG: @CatherineToon Watch on YouTube: Catherine Toon, MD (like & subscribe for more!)

Life can be ever so confusing. How do we know what to do and how to walk when conflicting opinions all seem right? Where do we go when we are hurting, grieving, weary, discouraged, anxious, oppressed, or in cycles of bondage? We all need a safe place to retreat - one that is always constant, unwavering, and healing. That place is the place of Love - and God Who is Love. Join me as I share this healing message! Stay connected with Catherine: Catherinetoon.com FB: Catherine Toon, MD IG: @CatherineToon Watch on YouTube: Catherine Toon, MD (like & subscribe for more!)

In this episode of Dr. Kathy Says, Dr. Kathy discusses the importance of children feeling liked, in addition to being loved. She explores how being liked can provide a sense of safety and belonging, and how it can impact our relationships as adults. Dr. Kathy also addresses the conditional nature of being liked and offers guidance on how parents can navigate conversations about liking their children while still expressing unconditional love. Tune in to gain insights on celebrating and affirming children in these challenging times.

“A man who likes nobody is much more unhappy, than a man whom nobody likes.” This week, join Cyrus Palizban, Anne Dudek, and Zohar Atkins as we grapple with this statement from François de la Rochefoucauld's “Maxims”. From political intrigue of European courts to the techniques actors employ to get into character, to the laws and rulesets we all set up for ourselves when navigating society: this episode is a deepdive into the concept of “happiness” and love. 00:01 Introduction to the Podcast 00:24 Unpacking François de la Rochefoucauld's Quote 00:56 Exploring the Historical Context 01:47 Interpreting the Quote through Political Intrigue 03:01 Contrasting Perspectives: Machiavellian Philosophy 04:36 Engagement and Community in Philosophy 05:08 The Role of Envy and Defensiveness 06:36 Exploring the Concept of 'Like' 07:05 The Role of Discernment and Judgment 07:30 The Complexity of 'Like' and 'Happiness' 08:00 The Role of Analogy in Understanding 09:20 The Paradox of Liking and Being Liked 22:27 The Role of Aspiration and Striving 25:15 Art, Happiness, and Fulfillment 26:00 Final Thoughts on Happiness and Superficiality 28:06 The Power of Liking and Being Liked 29:33 The Art of Empathy and Connection 30:35 Acting: A Tool for Emotional Control 31:24 The Struggles of Playing Unlikable Characters 32:56 The Complexity of Villains in Film 35:08 The Thin Line Between Acting and Reality 37:51 The Role of Empathy in Society 49:25 The Tragedy of Being Loved but Not Loving 54:40 Closing Thoughts   Want to continue the discussion? Join us for more learning and discussion in our Meditations and Chronicles WhatsApp groups!   Meditations: https://chat.whatsapp.com/JIFXc06ABCPEsyfUBtvm1U Chronicles: https://chat.whatsapp.com/FD6M9a35KCE2XrnJrqaGLU   Follow us on other platforms for more content!   Twitter: https://x.com/lightinspires   Instagram: https://instagram.com/lightning.inspiration?igshid=NzZlODBkYWE4Ng== Threads: https://www.threads.net/@lightning.inspiration   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightning-meditations/

The Wednesdays are for Walking With series explores the Disciple Like You Mean It online training from Next Step Press. In this special production of the Next Step Podcast, we will practice non-judgmental noticing with Jesus and help one another take a small next step, together. Episode 05 was first recorded on November 13, 2023. It features a conversation with three men who formed a Triad for the very first cohort of the Disciple Like You Mean It online training, and their pastor (who got them all into it in the first place). 0:00-10:08After a brief introduction and opening prayer, you'll hear from Daniel, David, Ryan and Pastor Nathan about how they got connected to the Disciple Like You Mean It course and their experience in a small group of three, or Triad. 10:09-17:04 Then we'll look at the role of Information, Imitation, and Innovation in the life of a disciple, with examples from their experience with the DLYMI training. 17:05-29:28One specific faith experiment in the course is sometimes called the Catcher's Mitt Calendar. Our guests will share how Innovation played a role in their engagement with that faith experiment. 29:29-endBefore we are done, we'll get final thoughts from the group before Pastor Nathan closes us with prayer. CHOOSE YOUR FAITH ADVENTURE If you choose to explore taking a Triad through the Disciple Like You Mean It course, visit this page. If you opt to experiment with the Prayer of Examen as it is found in Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved, click here. If you decide to go back to explore the Catcher's Mitt Calendar, turn to the bottom of this blog: My CEF Faith Calendar. The intro and outro music comes from Peter Prochnow's rendition of the hymn, "Awake My Soul and With the Sun" and is available from the Michigan District of the LCMS at www.thehymnalproject.com. Used by permission. This episode of the Next Step Podcast was supported in part by the generosity of Next Step Patrons. Please consider becoming a Next Step Patron before the end 2023. To see different options for support, including monthly and annual options, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep, or email justin@findmynextstep.org to make a one-time gift. Thank you to all of our Patrons! Patrons make it possible. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mynextstep/message

Welcome to Wednesdays are for Walking With, the latest feature of the Next Step Podcast! The goal of this series is to explore the Disciple Like You Mean It online training from Next Step Press. We'll practice non-judgmental noticing with Jesus and help one another take a small next step. Episode 01 was first recorded on Wednesday, July 19, 2023. It features a conversation with Deanna Rossow, one of the participants in the first cohort of the Disciple Like You Mean It training. You'll hear about a recent milestone in Deanna's life, and then host Justin Rossow will help her wonder what next step the Spirit might be inviting her to take in response to that milestone. Along the way, you'll hear from another one of our DLYMI trailblazers, Lexie Brown (Director of Family Life Ministry at St. Paul, Ann Arbor) as we realize again the importance of holding a GPS attitude (Where am I right now? Where is Jesus leading?) instead of a GPA attitude (How well am I doing? How could I be doing better?) when it comes to faith and following. Read more about it in the blog Orientation vs Performance: GPS or GPA? As part of the conversation, Deanna mentions the My Next Step series of books from Next Step Press as well as Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved. The intro and outro music comes from Peter Prochnow's rendition of the hymn, "Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blest" and is available at www.thehymnalproject.com. Used by permission. This episode of the Next Step Podcast was supported in part by the generosity of Next Step Patrons. Please consider becoming a Next Step Patron before the end 2023. To see different options for support, including monthly and annual options, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep, or email justin@findmynextstep.org to make a one-time gift. Thank you to all of our Patrons! Patrons make it possible. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mynextstep/message

This week Pastor Justin talks about the Grace, Goodness, and Glory of God and what it does to our boldness!   You can now see on our Youtube Channel by following this link: Filled   Important Points: Being Filled is what Fuels My Boldness! Being Blessed is what Brightens My Boldness! Being Loved is what Lifts My Boldness! Important Scriptures (NLT version unless stated otherwise):   Acts 4:1-13 Matthew 5:14-15 1 John 4:19 1 John 4:7-8 Acts 4:11-13

Did you know that marketing your interior design business via video on your social channels is more than just showing the pretty spaces? That's right - it's about storytelling. Today's guest, Jude Charles, is an expert in storytelling, filmmaking, and marketing. We discuss how interior designers can create 10 stories in their business to attract and close the right client, plus how to incorporate it in your marketing, and much more! For over 15 years, Jude Charles has been producing documentaries for entrepreneurs. He has produced stories for Google, Steve Harvey, and dozens of visionary CEOs. Jude is the author of Dramatic Demonstration. This book is a roadmap that teaches you how to dig deep to find compelling stories that no one else knows, and then leverage those stories to grow your business. Jude's mission is to lead and empower entrepreneurs to have relentless, unwavering courage. ***

As gay men, many of us have had to repress our authentic selves and hide our emotions because of negativity we may have experienced growing up differently. Among the myriad of issues this can cause, some of us may not trust acts of kindness from others.In this episode, we're discussing why we may be guarded when it comes to receiving acts of kindness, the struggles this can cause when forming a romantic relationship, and how we can ultimately learn to begin accepting kindness.Additional Resources:Trauma Makes Us Shun Kindness When We Need It Most05. Interpersonal Vulnerability: Overcoming the Fear of Rejection Why Do So Many People Respond Negatively to Being Loved?5 Reasons Why Receiving Is Harder Than GivingHow to Understand and Overcome Help-Rejecting BehaviorFears of Compassion: Development of Three Self-Report Measures11. Overcoming Internalized Homophobia30 Ways to Deal with Internalized Homophobia for LGBTQ PeopleBe Kind to YourselfThe Importance of Accepting ComplimentsHow to Accept KindnessHow I Learned to Accept Kindness — Because that Doesn't Make Me SelfishSupport the show

Wrap up 2022 with host Galina Dronova and Elizabeth Power, a sought after speaker, consultant, and CEO of EPower & Associates, as we discuss the importance of community in our personal and professional journeys. Listen for  advice on how to build community with patients and care teams. Learn more about Elizabeth: www.elizabethpower.com Book references: The Seven Levels of Intimacy: the Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved by Matthew Kelly The Four Agreements: a Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, a Toltec Wisdom Book by don Miguel Ruiz

Summary:  In this episode, Dr. Peter brings together what we have been learning about receiving love in the story of Susanna Lead-in:  There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”  Catholic Novelist Flannery O'Connor Intro.   I have been doing a lot of podcast lecturing.  Dense programming, lots of information.  Like Episode 99.  Not a bad thing.  But I want you to really take in what I'm offering at a bones level.  To possess it at the felt level, to be that familiar with it.  Not just head knowledge.  Whole self knowledge.   So I am going back to another way of learning, one I haven't emphasized enough.  Stories.  Today, I am going to tell you a story.  A story about receiving different kinds of love.  Why? Here's why.  In the words of Edward Miller tells us.  “Stories are our primary tools of learning and teaching, the repositories of our lore and legends. They bring order into our confusing world." Our primary tools for teaching and learning.  And it's true.  We teach our children in their earliest years through stories and experiences.  Not through lectures.   I am Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic, co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts and soulsandhearts.com, and I am very pleased to with you as  your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, episode 101 to be your storyteller, to tell you a story.  This episode is titled A Story about Receiving Different Kinds of Love -- a story we can all related to.   Prepping for the Story  Ways to Listen Listen to the Story  Listening to yourself as you listen to the Story.   What is going on inside Listen to your own parts Can pause the audio  Reflective space  What are your noticing  What are you resonating with in the story, what is impacting you.?  What are you rejecting   Parts -- Episode 71 A new and better way of understanding myself and others.   Needs  Primary Conditions for Secure Attachment Felt sense of safety and protection -- have to go through the valley of shame, fear, anger, grief  Feeling seen, heard, known and understood -- have to tolerating being in relationship, being present.   Feeling comforted, soothed and reassured  Feeling cherished, treasured, delighted in  Feeling the other has your best interests at heart   Integrity Needs My need to exist and survive  My need to matter  My need to have agency  My need to be good  My need for mission and purpose in life   Resistance to Being Loved from IIC 99  Limited vision and lack of imagination, leading to a refusal to be transformed by God We don't understand God's love The Costs of Being Loved by God Poor God images Poor Self images -- Shame Refusal to be vulnerable, to be exposed, to be revealed to God.  Lack of courage. Anger at God -- rebellion Cautions -- could be evocative for you -- parts of you may really connect in various ways.  I want you to take care of your self and your parts as you listen to the story.  If you need a break, take a break.   The Story -- Hero's Journey outline  The Ordinary World Susanna -- 40 year old married mother of three -- Brown hair, warm brown eyes, and easy smile, she laughs at your jokes -- the kind of person that you immediately felt comfortable with.  Open and engaging with other people, was well read, and could talk about your interests.  Socially adept, she coordinated making meals for local women who had babies.  Had a sense that she had suffered in her life and understood something about suffering.  And that was true Life wasn't always easy for Susanna Grew up in Culpeper, VA, 75 miles west of Washington DC, oldest of four children, all girls.  Named Susan.   Mother -- quiet, introverted - an interior designer turned homemaker.   Father -- extroverted, warm, gregarious high school teacher - taught algebra, geometry and trigonometry at Culpeper County High School  -- great sense of humor, gratifying, and a pretty easy grader, students loved him and he really liked being a popular teacher.  Strong sense that father had favorites among the daughters, and she wasn't one of them   When Susan was age 16, her mother divorced her father -- his affairs, excessive drinking Mother devastated.  Really wanted her daughter to understand.  Susanna was cold.   Read the divorce decree "Irreconcilable differences"  And she was so angry  At an emotional level, Susan repudiated both Mom and Dad.  Not understanding, not wanting to understand.   Decided to go by "Susanna" -- three reasons Devoted to the Chronicles of Narnia -- The last book of the series, The Last Battle.  Aslan says "Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia."  Given to nylons, lipstick, and party invitations -- she didn't seem serious  any more.   Susan was her given name -- she wanted different name, but not too different  In the Bible, in Daniel chapter 13, Susanna was the beautiful, faithful wife of Joakim.  She refused to be blackmailed into adultery by two respectable men of high stature in the community, two judges, who just happened to have also be voyeurs, peeping-Toms.  Susanna preferred death by denunciation rather than compromise her moral principles, and was saved by a young boy, Daniel, whose clever cross-examination of the accusers revealed them to be liars.  Susanna was a real heroine in her eyes, someone to be emulated.   Shuttling back and forth between parents, who were drifting from the Faith. Mom pursued an annulment got it, and remarried the summer after Susanna's graduation from high school.  Susanna refused to be in the bridal party, refused to go to the wedding.  Like many teenagers in this position, Susan rebelled.  But not by using alcohol, drugs or sex.  Susan rebelled by becoming more Catholic --  Went to Christendom college, it was close, it was Catholic.  She was determined to make a new life there.  Leave the old life behind.  Came home to see her parents as little as possible, focused on her sisters when she did come home.  Very uncommunicative with Mom and Dad.   Christendom is where she met Brett, who eventually became her husband.   Mathematics major, got into computer programming.  Very introverted, not very social.  Not socially awkward, exactly, but not at all inclined to parties and large groups.   Home based -- independent contractor.   High income Fantasy Role playing Games.   Children 16 year old Savannah, her oldest -- now driving and asserting her independence.   13 year old Trevor -- athlete, mechanically talented, liked woodworking  10 year old Micah -- still really cute and cuddly with Mom, starting to play volleyball and very into play dates with her friends.   The Call to Adventure Had been a freelance writer, mostly for Catholic publications, small but dedicated following. Made a little money.   Fr. Brownlee, the pastor asks her if she would consider being the assistant for ministry outreach at their suburban mega-parish.  Part time position.   Ray de la Cruz, the director for ministry outreach needed and assistant, just 10-15 hours per week, a lot of writing and some event planning, event management.   Fr. Brownlee, the pastor, love to have you on board, consider it -- Office at the parish, near the parish grade school, close to her two youngest kids.  A fit for her charisms.   Refusing the Call to Adventure She has a comfortable life, deciding not to do it.  Likes her home.   Brett starting to have some odd heart problems.  High blood pressure for years, stress of hitting deadlines.  Not doing as well.  Strange bodily symptoms, heart racing, no biological causes found.  Sometimes off of work for a week at a time, income not so stable.   Gnawing anxiety about that -- his father and grandfather had both died young.  She wasn't confident that she could handle the family finances if he died or became incapacitated.  Pushing it out of her mind.   Conflict increasing at home, especially between Trevor and Brett.   Need for human contact, writing getting lonely.  Brett not very good company right now, irritable, sad.    Maybe she does have something to offer.  Kids are more independent now, very busy.   Meeting the Mentor Ray, the director of ministry outreach -- really dynamic guy, lots of positive energy.  Brought in six months ago to revitalize the ministry outreach and find ways to really reach people, bring them more alive in the Faith.   Lots of initiatives across the different demographics of the parish.  Just needed a little help.   Susanna didn't know him well.  But from her vantage point, she did appreciate how he motivated people, how he stayed on his message of getting people to pray, to spend time with the Lord.  The Eucharistic Adoration chapel at the parish had been pretty moribund, but now it was lively, and teenagers from the youth groups were regularly taking hours in front of the Lord, even her daughter Savannah.  Ray was direct, straight-talking and had just come from significant success as an assistant VP in a mid-size marketing firm, but now was looking for more meaning and purpose in his life.  He was 38, had a few years in diocesan seminary, discerned out, and had never married.  He was doing an amazing outreach with the Latino community in the parish as well.   In the initial interview with Ray about the position, Susanna felt uplifted and supported.  She sensed that Ray was interested in her life, her background.  He discussed how he wanted to craft the position around the person -- around her -- capitalizing on her strengths, gifts, charisms, and not trying to fit her to some procrustean bed of a rigid position description.  And he really wanted to make sure that the position, if she took it, fostered her spiritual life.  "We have a start-up spirit here, not your same old parish corporate Catholicism" he said, laughing.  He was a fan of Dynamic Catholic and Matthew Kelly, had his books handy, Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic was his favorite book, he told her.  So much in there we can learn to put in practice here.   Let me think about it.  Give me two weeks.  "OK, Susanna, you have two weeks.  Take all the time you need.  I'll be praying for you.  Just don't forget about me, OK, get in back in touch when you are ready."   If I am going to step back out in the world, I would want the position to support my spiritual life, foster my prayer life, help me toward holiness.  I would want someone in my corner, Susanna thought.  Someone who really had my back, someone that would advocate for me, some who understood me.  I need that.  If I start working outside our home again, I would need a supervisor who actually cares about me as a person not just what I can do for them.  Then with just a little twinge, a feeling she couldn't quite identify, the next thought came.  Someone like Ray.  She corrected herself.  Mr. De la Cruz.   Crossing the Threshold Ten days later she came back to the parish offices met  Ray and Fr. Brownlee in Ray's office and said, I'm in, but here's the caveat.  I want to try it for 90 days, see how it goes -- family life, how this sits with Brett, it's been a long while since I've been working in the world.   All right, Ray said, his face lighting up.  Let's do this -- and no worries, Susanna, this parish isn't the world,  You'll be working in the Church, not the world.  Fr. Brownlee shook her hand and smiled.  Have Martha onboard you with all the employment paperwork, she'll walk you through all that tedium.  I will let you and Ray figure out the details about how to work together, I trust you both, I have to go, financial reports for the Archdiocese are waiting.  You know how to reach me if you need something.  God bless.   Let's start with prayer, said Ray.  And without waiting for her to answer, he prayed out loud, thanking God for the parish, for Fr. Brownlee, for the outreach work, the work of evangelization, for the beauty of the day, and for Susanna joining the staff, bringing all her gifts and talents and her whole being to the team.  Then he made the sign of the cross.   All right, Ray said again, let's shake on the deal.  He held out his hand and she shook it, and felt a ripple of electricity surges up her arm as he gave her a quick squeeze before releasing.  She felt excited, was she really happy?  She hadn't sensed such an uplift in a long time.  I must have gotten older than my years somehow, she thought to herself.  She smiled warmly at him and he laughed again and asked "what's your schedule for today?   Test, Allies, Enemies The next six month seemed like a whirlwind to Susanna.   She absolutely embraced the parish work. Her confidence rose week by week.  Ray was able to find just the right growing edges for her, to really stretch her but not overwhelm her.  They read passages from Matthew Kelly's book "The Dream Manager" and brainstormed together about her professional development.   Susanna did most of the planning for the eighth grade retreat, and her son Trevor said that all his friends at school thought it was the best retreat ever.   Susanna connected with Martha, the parish administrative assistant and Sharon, the school principal, who also took an interest in her and appreciated her eating lunch with the students including Trevor and Micah on occasion.   And she made a lot of mistakes, there was a steep learning curve for Susanna.  Ray laughed them off with one or more of his inexhaustible supply of quotes.   For the eighth grade graduation supper, Susanna caused great commotion with a caterer -- Susanna had made several errors in placing the order and then alienated the caterer in her frantic attempts to force everything to work out.  Multiple different entrees had to be prepared in an emergency, the food quality suffered and worst of all, all Trevor's classmates knew it was Susanna's fault.  The caterer complained about Susanna to the pastor and the auxiliary bishop.   Susanna felt terrible, ashamed, and guilty.  Ray wasn't fazed by it at all. He just quoted the business magnate Richard Branson  who said "You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over."   That was so refreshing for Susanna, who ever since her parents' divorce had been so focused on not making mistakes.  She began to realize that she saw her parents' divorce as a huge mistake, she never wanted to make a mistake like that, and the best way to avoid making such a huge mistake was to make no mistakes at all.  She began to feel more free, like the world was a little more spacious.   At Ray's insistence, Susanna had dispensed with calling him Mr. De la Cruz after the first meeting.  My name's Raimundo, but just call me Ray.  Everyone does." And everyone did, even the school kids and the youth of the parish.   Ray seemed to have unbounded energy and no end of creative ideas.  He also took prayer seriously -- Early in the morning, Susanna would see him in the Adoration chapel.  He invited her to pray with him before they met to discern and discuss plans.  He inquired about her prayer life -- and let her know that he was continuing to pray for her, that she be a saint.  He asked her to pray for him.  And amazing things were happening in the parish.  Ray was a dynamic motivational speaker, especially for the teenagers and the young adults, and he had a way of connecting with the men of the parish as well.  He had a remarkable ability to remember names.  Susanna found herself admiring him.   She grew more and more curious about him, and what made him tick, where did he get all the energy and enthusiasm?  He never seemed to have a bad day.  He had the full support of the pastor and a lot of autonomy.   Her daughters noticed that Mom was happier and busier.  Her husband Brett seemed to be noncommittal about her working at the parish.  But he was in his funk still, and Susanna began to wonder if he might be depressed.  It was hard to know, he was so hard to reach in so many ways.   Her own prayer life was growing -- the challenges she was facing encouraged her to pray.  And now she had two teenagers, with their trials and their hormones to deal with.  Trevor, now in high school, occasionally would ask "How's it going for you, Mom at work.?  How's Ray?"  Susanna found herself tongue-tied trying to explain what her work was like to Trevor.   Susanna experienced some confusion and a vague sense of guilt about her marriage.  She struggled with how to love Brett, who so needed space and whose love languages seemed so different from hers.   He seemed even more uncomfortable with touch than in years past, with physical affection unless he had been drinking.  She had a sense that he didn't fully approve of her working at the parish, but he would not come out and say what he thought.  He was so indirect.  Why could that man not support her in something that she found joy and purpose and meaning in?  It troubled her.   Very gradually, over time, Ray became even more casual and familiar in his conversation with Susanna.  Sometimes he would call her "Susanita" and playfully refer to Susanna as his "guiding star" when she had a particularly creative idea.  He had an amazing vocabulary in multiple languages.  Once in a while, when he was in a particularly warm mood, he would refer to her with terms of affection in other languages -- querida, cara, carino, mon chéri.  She asked him about that.  He responded with a big smile and his arms open wide, I'm from Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco, We talk like that there, they are just ways of expressing friendship and connection.  And I consider you more than just my assistant.  I think we are spiritual friends -- at least I hope we are.  Like St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal.  But hey, if it bothers you, I won't use those words,  I can just call you Susanna.  No problem."  "No, no it's ok, I kind of like it.."  Great, said Ray.  Susanna, I just want to be a Ray of sunshine in your life, and he laughed heartily at his own play on words.  But those words stayed with Susanna and echoed in her memory.   A Ray of sunshine in my life.    Three weeks later, at the end of the day.  Susanna stopped by Ray's office to drop off a file and saw him head down in his chair, shaking.  "Ray?"  "Ray, are you all right?"  He took his hands from his face, eyes streaming with silent tears. "No."  "I'm not all right."  "I'm very not right."  Susanna immediately pulled up a chair next to his, and instinctively she reached out to take his right hand in both of hers.  "Ray, it's OK.  Ray, what is it?"  Ray's breathing was labored and his body shuddered.  "I'm glad you're here, I am so glad you're here. Susanna. Just stay with me for a while.  With his free hand he wiped tears from his eyes and looked at her.  "Ray, what's wrong?"  Ray broke off eye contact, looked over her head at the wall.  "I can't tell you what's wrong, Susanna.  I can't."  "I'm so alone, I am so lonely."  He looked at her again.  "I can't tell you how lonesome I am."  He looked down at their hands joined together -- "Do you know it's been four days since anyone has touched me?"  And he sobbed silently, rocking back and forth in his chair looking so wounded, looking so broken, looking like a little lost, abandoned boy.   Susanna's heart was so full of emotion, and she was acting on impulse.  She disengaged her right hand and put her arm around his shoulders holding him with just enough pressure to slow his rocking down.   Look at me, she said to him.  He looked into her eyes.  She said -- You are my Ray of Sunshine.  Remember that."  Then fear flooded through her and she ran out to her car without her coat or purse in a cold and dark mid-December mist.  Her mind was reeling and she tried to recollect herself in the driver's seat.  What had just happened?  What was going on?  She turned the key, the car started.  I need some music she said, and turned on the radio.  Savannah had tuned in last to an 80s station, and the DJ was saying, up next, Dan Fogelberg's top 10 hit from 1981, Same Auld Lang Syne.  Met my old lover in the grocery store. The snow was falling Christmas Eve I stood behind her in the frozen foods. And I touched her on the sleeve.  And then her tears flowed.  And from deep within her, a very, very young voice was crying out over and over again "I want to go home."  "I want to go home" as Dan sang on.   Two minutes later the lyrics pierced her like a spear when Dan was singing She said she'd married her an architect, Who kept her warm and safe and dry, She would've liked to say she loved the man, But she didn't like to lie.  Susanna clawed the driver's door open leaned over and threw up on the asphalt.  She shut the radio off in the middle of the saxophone solo, slammed the transmission into reverse and spun her tires on the wet pavement backing out of there, away from the parish, away from Ray, away from anywhere, just to get away.   I love Brett, Susanna insisted to herself, as she drove.  I love my husband.  I do.  I am faithful to him.  I love my husband.   But another voice, low and soft, almost gentle, said, Yes, you do.  Yes you do.  But are you sure Brett is your husband?  Of course Brett is my husband.  We're married.  We were married on October 10, we made vows to each other.  "Yes, you did.  You did.  You made a vow.  And Brett said the words too.  Maybe Brett made a vow, if he was actually capable of making a vow.  Maybe.  But, Susanna, you know that Brett is on the spectrum don't you?  What's the term Functioning autistic?  He has been since he was little.  Come now, listen to me.  How often does he look at you?  How well does he understand you, really?  Or connect with you emotionally, relationally?  What about how he shrinks from your touch so often?  How he is so, so  introverted?  How he lives so much in a fantasy world in his role playing games with anonymous gamers from all over the world?  Let's be honest, Susanna, about Brett, it's about time.   And let's be honest about you, too.  Why you wanted him for a husband.  Did you want to love him out of charity -- really?  How has that been going, you loving him?  Isn't it true that what you really wanted was your own safety, security, his income?  And isn't it true that you so desperately wanted to not depend on either of your parents, but you weren't ready to stand on your own two feet?   Shut up, shut up, shut up.  Susanna, Don't you know that you actually love Ray?  Are you that blind?  You have loved Ray for months now, but you still you won't admit it.  Didn't you just prove that, holding hands with him, your arm around him?  Your Ray of Sunshine.  Shut up, shut up, shut up! I'm going crazy, Susanna thought.  I am going round the bend.  Could it be that Brett was too impaired to marry me?  Could there be any truth to that?  She remembered several Catholic friends and acquaintances who after their civil divorces had applied for declarations of nullity for their marriages from the Archdiocesan Tribunal.  All of them were granted.   That was a long evening back at home.  Susanna told the kids and Brett she wasn't feeling well, skipped supper and went to bed where she lied awake in the darkness in the chaos of her thoughts.   The next morning she was supposed to meet with Fr. Brownlee and Ray at 9:00-- she considered calling in sick, but she knew she would have to face Ray again at some point.  She arrived at the conference room exactly at 9 -- she didn't want to be late, but she didn't want to be early.  Ray was there, looking like his old self.  He told her Fr. Brownlee is running a little late.  Hey, Susanna, about yesterday -- I'm sorry about being a hot mess.  I'm not usually like that, I know I probably made you uncomfortable.  Susanna found herself saying, no, Ray, it's OK, really, I was glad to help, and taking in his smile.  Thank you, Susanita.  Thank you.  We're OK?  Yes, Ray, we're OK.  OK. I just want to thank you for all you did for me.  You can't possibly know how much you helped me.  You were a gift from God, no really, a gift.  I thank God for you.  You were so attuned to just what I needed.  Can I give you just a little hug, to thank you, my spiritual friend, my sister in Christ?  It's hard for me to express everything that's in my heart for you just in words alone.   And Susanna, speechless, gave the slightest of nods before being enfolded in Ray's arms.  Her body felt electrified as he held her, she felt his body warm and firm and strong against hers, he was smiling down at her, just for those three seconds, and then felt the ache of longing as he let her go, saying, Thank you, mon cherie. Please don't tell anyone how you found me, yesterday.  Let's keep that between us, please, I am still embarrassed by my weakness and vulnerability.   And at that moment, before she could respond Fr. Brownlee's steps sounded in the corridor, and they separately quickly as they heard his customary hearty greeting, his Pax Vobiscum preceding him from the hallway.  They sat down around the table and started with the business items of the day.   After that, their hugs became more frequent and longer.  They prayed together in the chapel.  Sometimes, they furtively held hands, with God's approval, Ray said, as God's beloved children would and siblings who loved each other, Ray said.  But they did hide it, because others wouldn't understand their relationship, as Ray said.   They were having lunch in the break room of the parish center -- instead of at the school cafeteria -- Susanna asked Ray once more what he was crying that late afternoon -- if he felt up to talking about it.  Ray said he was grieving.  Grieving what?  Grieving for himself.  For his situation.  Did you ever see the musical Man of la Mancha?  When Don Quijote sang the Impossible Dream.  She wasn't familiar with the song.  They were alone -- so in a low voice, he sang the first few lines for her.  To dream the impossible dreamTo fight the unbeatable foeTo bear with unbearable sorrowTo run where the brave dare not goTo right, the un-rightable wrongTo love pure and chaste from afar And this was why I was grieving -- I was grieving you.  That all I could do in my love for you, all I could do was to love you, pure and chaste, from afar.  We were never going to be close in the way I wanted, in the way I hoped you wanted, it was just going to be frustration and pain and sacrifice and suffering -- But you Susanna -- you showed me another way -- in that dark hour of despair, you reached out and touched me, took my hand, made it all right.  You had the presence, you were so able to find a way I could not see for us to be together, for us to love each other and it be right and good.  So now it's out there, Susanna Richards.  I, Raimundo de la Cruz, your Ray of Sunshine, I love you.  I will always love you.  Whether you love me or not, I will always love you.  Like in Wendell Berry's novel Jayber Crow -- How Jayber loved Mattie Chatham in the way he did, pure and chaste from afar, because Mattie was married to Troy. Jayber was more faithful and true to Mattie than Troy ever was.  And Ray leaned back and held his arms wide and said.  I love you this big much, mon cherie and laughed.  You don't have to say anything Susanita, it's all right.  I know this is a lot to take in. I'm OK with whatever your decide.  I've decided for me. I've sorted it out on my end, I am at peace.  I've made my commitment.  I will devote my life to you, in love, in whatever way you permit, in whatever way you allow.  I am all yours to take or to leave.  You are my Dulcinea, my querida.   And like a moth to the flame, Susanna was drawn in deeper and deeper.  At the time, the her increasing enmeshment with Ray felt inexorable but later in the clarity of retrospect, she knew it wasn't.  Eventually they had sex on a wrestling mat in storeroom by the school gym.  So much shifted in both of them after that.  For a few weeks after that, they tried to "make the relationship work".  It didn't work.  Two months after his initial conquest of her, Ray's quote eternal love end quote fizzled out.  His idealized Dulcinea image of her faded, and he moved on, decided to leave his ministry position at the parish and moved to another state.   Susanna also quit her job and entered into a deep depression, filled with shame and guilt.  Brett and the kids were worried, they had never seen her like this.  Who am I?  She kept saying to herself.  Who am I?  She was walking downtown that Saturday afternoon on her way from the parking garage to the Catholic bookstore, to find a confirmation gift for her niece as she struggled with her identity.   You know what you are, said the soft, silky voice. You know what you are.  An adulterer.  A whore.   You are Susan.  Not Susanna.  Susanna was the one who resisted seduction, was willing to die rather than enter into adultery.  Don't you remember?  You are not her.  Then hardest cut of all You are just like your father.  You should die. Death will bring you release, Susan, do you know that?  What do you have to live for now? To the be the adulterous wife of Brett who you don't love and who doesn't want you?  To be the whore mother of your children, infecting them with your vice?  Can't you be humble enough, even now, to know that they are better off without you?  End it all now, Susanna.  It would be so easy, there's nothing to it… Approach to the Inmost Cave and the Ordeal At that exact same time on Saturday afternoon, In the little coastal town of Barra Grande, halfway between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in southeastern Brazil, a 10 year old girl felt an inspiration to pray for whoever might be in most need right now, maybe a lady who was really sad, a lady who needed help.  Her prayer went up to heaven like incense and Susanna did not throw herself into the traffic on that busy street, but made it to the Catholic bookstore, looking a little disheveled.  The cashier noticed her as she came in and gave a faint smile and a halfhearted greeting-- she thought the lady did not look well, but at least she clearly was not one of the homeless people that had been so inconvenient lately.   In her numbness and distress, dwelling on Who am I?  Susanna noticed she was thirsty.  Weird, to notice that right now.  It made sense.  She hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day.  It doesn't matter.  Nothing matters anymore.  She walked up through the aisle on prayer, and a slim green volume caught her eye.  Thirsting for Prayer.  Fr. Jacques Phillipe.  She reaches, takes it off the shelf.   On page 20, she reads "Over and above our sins and failings, we discover that we are God's children. God loves us as we are, with an absolutely unconditional love and it is this love that gives us our deepest identity." Something moved within her. She flipped to page 22 and read: It is a deep aspiration of every man (and, still more, every woman!) to feel uniquely loved. Not loved in a general way, as one of a large group, but appreciated in our uniqueness. This is what the father's love brings about. Each of us can experience that in his eyes we are loved, chosen by God, in an extremely personal way. We often have the feeling that God loves us in a general way: he loves all men, I'm one of them, so he must take a bit of interest in me. But being loved in a " global" way, as one item in the collection, cannot satisfy us. And then to page 23 "Each of us is every right to say: "God loves me as he loves nobody else in the world!" God does not love two people in the same way because it is actually his love that creates her personality, a different personality for each."  And then, for the first time in many months, the sobs came, racking, heaving sobs.  This is who I am.  This is who I am!  This is who I am.  A beloved daughter of God.   The cashier heaved herself out of her chair and peered into the aisle.  Ma'am?  Are you OK? But received no answer from Susanna.  The cashier shrugged and went back to her chair to work on her Sudoku puzzle.  The store manager came over and asked the cashier in a low voice what was going on.  She replied sardonically that he had a major clean up to tend to in aisle 4.   Then Susanna was up on her feet and moving fast to the door. She stopped momentarily to ask the manager and cashier -- is there a Catholic church nearby?  Yes, there's one two blocks north, just go right, and then straight up, can't miss it, Mass is in 50 minutes.  Thank you, thank you and she hurried out -- Ah, do you want to pay for the book?  I'm so sorry, I'm a bit beside myself.  Susanna threw a $20 bill on the counter and ran out.   At St. Patrick's Parish, the new pastor Fr. Jennings was eyeing James, the volunteer guitar player and song leader for the 5:00 PM Mass. James, who he he had inherited with the parish in the reassignment two weeks ago.  James was in his mid-60s, with a grey ponytail, limited musical talent, and a overweening penchant for Marty Haugen tunes, the very ones that Fr. Jennings most despised.  What James lacked in accurate pitch he made up for with increased volume.  And James had not followed through on the music they had agreed on for last week's Mass, substituting songs that seemed to him as better to sing in the moment, ones the congregation was familiar with and loved.  Much better than the dry hymns this new pup of a pastor wanted.  Fr. Jennings told himself to remember that James was also a beloved son of God as he moved in for the confrontation.   But at that moment, a woman burst into the church.  Father, will you hear my confession?  Yes, I would be glad to.  And truth be told, Fr. Jennings appreciated a reprieve from the messy business of dealing with James.   Forgive me father, for I have sinned.  It's been six months or so since my last confession.  And then it all poured out, twelve and a half minutes of heart rending sin and sorrow as Susanna's mascara completed its journey to her chin, borne by tears of both sorrow and joy.  Her hatred for her parents, her pride, the adultery with Ray, it all came out.  And as the priest gave the absolution, the Magdalene smiled.   The Ordeal Susanna left the confessional with three things. A huge sense of relief, a strong sense of mission and a business card for a counselor in the city.  The priest strongly recommended that she see this counselor Sandra, one whom he knew and trusted.  With the suicidal crisis over for now, a whole new set of questions emerged.  How should she tell Brett about Ray?  Should she tell him at all?   The priest had stressed the point that much of her struggle was in the natural realm - in her history, in her upbringing, and that all needed to be addressed.  She needed some professional help.   Susanna looked Sandra up.  Sandra looked young, really young.  She found another one, a Dr. Waldron, a psychologist in his late 60s nearing retirement and started therapy with him.  .  It didn't go well.  She felt blamed and judged by this man who seems more interested in catechizing her than listening.  It lasted two sessions and she fired him.    She connected with Sandra and entered into deep work.  She learned that everyone has parts within them -- constellations of feelings and thoughts and desires.  Sometimes parts blend.   She was able to connect with her managers A Good Girl Part who always wants her to do the right thing and grew exhausted and hopeless when she could not prevent the affair with Ray.   An inner critic who tries to help her by riding her and cutting her down in the hope that she will be good enough to be loved  A stuff-it-down manager who represses other parts out of a deep fear that they will overwhelm her  A keep-it-safe avoiding part that steers clear of potential trouble and works to minimize the risk of being negatively evaluated by others.   And over time she was able to connect with the exiled parts within her A part that wanted to be loved by her father, who so missed her father.  She realized that this part's impulses and desires were fueling so much of her interactions with Ray, because this part saw so much of her father in Ray.  The parts believed that if she were to win Ray's love, it would fill her father needs.   Another exile that felt so much shame about not being able to keep her parents' marriage from falling apart, who felt responsible for the divorce. Her Good Girl part and her inner critic were both focused on silencing this part.  This part just wanted to be able to go home to be loved by Mom and Dad.   A part filled with rage toward her parents and who hated God for giving her those parents  She discovered parts of her that hated her husband and parts of her that were fond of him.  Both could be true.    As parts gave her space, she was able to discover her innermost self -- her innermost self was able to emerge and begin to lead and guide her system, and innermost self with beautiful qualities.   And as she became more integrated inside, her experience of herself began to make sense.  For the first time.   She realized the when she was tempted by the devil, the devil was trying to co-opt the most alienated parts of her, the one who would be most susceptible to his influence.  Then if those parts could take over and drive her bus, great harm would result.   It was painful work.  She felt in her bones what Fr. Jacques Philippe wrote on page 19 of her book:  The negative aspect has to do with her sin, our deep-seated wretchedness. We only know these things truthfully in the light of God. Face-to-face with him, there is no longer any possible room for lies; no invasion, no excuse, no mask. We are compelled to recognize who we are, with their wounds, our weaknesses, or inconsistencies, selfishness, hard-heartedness, secret complicity with evil, and all the rest. But with that work came a sense of peace and joy, of being loved by God and Mary in all her parts.  A realization that all her parts were good. A knowing that her parents did not have to love her any more than they did.  God the Father and Mary her Mother are her primary parents.   Susanna was able to get in touch with Life-Giving Wounds to work through the impact of her parents' divorce in a retreat and in a local chapter.   And she began to pray and related with God and Mary in a completely different way.  Good girl:  I don't have to give up Catholicism.  I just have to give up my flawed understanding of Catholicism.  The Rewards She feared Brett would be devastated when she told him.  He seemed more relieved.  Trevor had told Brett that he thought Mom and Ray had been having an affair.  Trevor had heard rumors and seen some interactions that made him suspicious.  That was a blow to Susanna, that the affair was not nearly so secret as she imagined.   Brett and Susanna were able to find a marital therapist to begin to work on their marriage in a more focused way.  Not easy, there were limitations.   The Road Back She hates her husband and loves him.  Lots of work with the children.  Trevor's anger.    A sense of Providence.   Resurrection / Return Two years later -- she was knocking at the door of her childhood home in Culpeper.  Her father answered, surprised to see her.  It's good to see you -- will you come in?  he asked.  She smiled at him and said:  It's good to see you too, Dad.  And for the first time in more than a quarter century, she meant it.   Take a minute.   Feedback welcome What you thought  Your own story -- send it to me -- crisis@soulsandhearts.com   IIC 102  The Last podcast, episode 100 was a great success in spite of some real technical failure.  We have a learning curve with our technology, and we know some of you were not able to join us.  We have resolved those issues.  We will be meeting on Wednesday, December 14 from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern time to record and experiential exercise on parts getting the love that they need. Need to register, here is a link, can get the link from our weekly reflections in your email inbox or in our archive at soulsandhearts.com/blog.   Imagine how Susanna's experience would have been different if she had known about parts before encountering Ray -- or before marrying Brett?  Resilient Catholic Community -- you do not have to be alone.    120 Catholics like you already on board, already on the pilgrimage Reopened December 1 -- new cohort, our St. Dymphna cohort.  Until December 31.  Check it out.  Had a great meeting on December 1 and we will posting the recording very soon if it's not up already.  Sign up soulsandhearts.com/rcc -- lots of information there I've brought together the best Get to know your own parts Get to love your own parts If interested, contact me.   Crisis@soulsandhearts.com 317.567.9594 conversation hours 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern Time Every Tuesday and Thursday.  (not November 24 which is Thanksgiving).     Upcoming Sign up for the weekly reflection     

Brenda J and Karen W interview Celestia Tracy and Nancy Galassini-Gunn on their book Explore, A Guided Journey to Being Loved. Celestia is Co-Founder of Mending the Soul, author of twelve books and workbooks, and a professional trauma counselor.  Drawing from twenty-five years of teaching and training experience in areas of abuse and healing, secondary trauma, intimacy and bonding, biblical sexuality, and soul care, Celestia ensures that all Mending the Soul curricula and trainings are psychologically-informed and using best practice models. Nancy is the artist in Explore, a Mending The Soul facilitator, and abuse survivor. The four women take a deep dive into the book and it is extremely educational and healing. https://mendingthesoul.org https://hangingontohope.org

In this episode we chat for thre second time with fan favorite, Mark Groves. His work centers around understanding human and relational behavior. Mark walks us through frustrations, heartbreaks, shame, and guilt in life. He discusses the things we experience in our day-to-day lives and all the feelings surrounding our relationships that we struggle to deal with. Starting Create the Love [2:11] “If you want to find what you love, find what breaks your heart.” Commitment, Being Loved and Wanted  [9:09] “I was sad because I was missing what could be. It was hard to navigate. I know that if you wanted to be with me you would show up differently.” “If we wanted someone to be with us, we wouldn't tolerate the situationship.” What You Deserve [14:02] “You have to take charge of your charge.” Worthiness  [17:37] “It's amazing how much we will stay in a relationship and hope.” Recognizing Your Feelings [24:08] “It's a responsibility to continue and not to act out of feeling lonely. It is a constant conversation you have to have with yourself.” Boxing Yourself In [36:37] “There is an ethical line where you can't exploit fear.” Compassion and Empathizing with Other People  [50:49] “I try to hold as much empathy and at the same time remind people to not make not-so-great choices. We're all human and we all screw up.” “You can know where that behavior came from and not tolerate it.”   Connect with Mark Groves @createthelove Please download, rate & review this episode and share it with friends! Connect with Kelly here: Courses & Coaching Kelly's Favorites Follow Me on Instagram Follow Me on TikTok Join the ChaseLife with Kelly Community! Subscribe to My YouTube Channel

Brenda J and Karen W interview Celestia Tracy and Nancy Galassini-Gunn on their book Explore, A Guided Journey to Being Loved. Celestia is Co-Founder of Mending the Soul, author of twelve books and workbooks, and a professional trauma counselor.  Drawing from twenty-five years of teaching and training experience in areas of abuse and healing, secondary trauma, intimacy and bonding, biblical sexuality, and soul care, Celestia ensures that all Mending the Soul curricula and trainings are psychologically-informed and using best practice models. Nancy is the artist in Explore, a Mending The Soul facilitator, and abuse survivor. The four women take a deep dive into the book and it is extremely educational and healing. https://mendingthesoul.org https://hangingontohope.org

Brenda J and Karen W interview Celestia Tracy and Nancy Galassini-Gunn on their book Explore, A Guided Journey to Being Loved. Celestia is Co-Founder of Mending the Soul, author of twelve books and workbooks, and a professional trauma counselor.  Drawing from twenty-five years of teaching and training experience in areas of abuse and healing, secondary trauma, intimacy and bonding, biblical sexuality, and soul care, Celestia ensures that all Mending the Soul curricula and trainings are psychologically-informed and using best practice models. Nancy is the artist in Explore, a Mending The Soul facilitator, and abuse survivor. The four women take a deep dive into the book and it is extremely educational and healing. https://mendingthesoul.org https://hangingontohope.org

Summary -- It is so common for Catholics (and others) to reject the love of God, to not let that love in.  Join Dr. Peter for this episode where we explore in depth the eight natural, human formation reasons why we refuse God's love. We also look at what Hell really is and why it really exists.  Through examples, quotes, and an exploration of Dr. Peter's own parts, listen to how this critical, central topic comes alive.  And then Dr. Peter presents the an action plan for accepting and embracing God's love.   Lead-in “It's very hard for most of us to tolerate being loved.” ―Psychiatrist and Harvard Professor  George Vaillant (need description)  The Hardest Thing about love for many of us Catholics -- is to be loved.  To tolerate being loved first.  We can't love unless we take love in first.  We can't generate love out of nothing on our own, we don't have that power.     Many Catholics make sacrifices great and small in an attempt to love others.   Many Catholics go to great lengths to try to please God and to love their neighbor -- very busy people, most parishes have a few of these -- always volunteering, working, making things happen, St. Vincent de Paul, soup kitchens, corporal works of mercy -- working so hard to live out the Gospel as they understand it, but it's all external -- they are very out of touch with their internal lives.  Their prayer lives are shallow and sketchy and they are uncomfortable in their own skin and they will not tolerate silence.   The vast majority of us Catholics will not tolerate being loved deeply or fully.  We shy away from receiving love.  We get so uncomfortable, we skirt around the edges of being loved Or we allow love into us only so far.  Only so far.  We won't let real love permeate all of our being.  We let the quote acceptable unquote parts of us be loved, those parts we allow in our shop window.  Those parts we believe others will accept.   But to allow someone to love all of you -- your nasty parts, your shameful parts, your disgusting parts, your hidden leper parts, your sinful parts -- those tax collector parts, your inner prostitutes and blasphemers, your Pharisee parts, the parts of you that are so lost and so isolated and so angry and hateful?  Those parts?  Most of us will say -- No way -- no way does anyone get to see those parts if I can help it, let alone love those parts.  How about your terrified parts, your desperate parts, your wounded, traumatized parts, the ones no one wants, the parts of you that have been rejected by everybody, including yourself.  This podcast is for us Catholics who understand at least intellectually that we have those parts.  And that those parts need to be loved.  Those parts also need to be redeemed.   For anyone out there who is saying "Well, I don't think I have any parts like that, Dr. Peter. I don't have any problems being loved."  My response to that is one of two possibilities -- either you are: 1 -- A very special person, who has been freed from our fallen human condition and you've achieved an extraordinary degree of perfection in the natural and spiritual realms -- and if so, congratulations to you.  You don't need this podcast and you don't need this episode, you are so far above the rest of us.  I'm in awe of you.  You don't need what I have to offer.   Or 2 -- you don't know yourself very well.  You are out of touch with yourself and your parts, disconnected inside.   It's especially hard for us to tolerate being loved by God.  That's the primary reason we don't love God back and we don't love our neighbor and we don't love ourselves. We won't be loved first.  God loved us first.   It all starts with God's love -- not our love.  God loved us first.   Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow in his Book Shaken  “We were created by Love, in love, and for love.”   Paul tells us in Romans 5:8  But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.    God loved us first.   1 John 3:1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. The world does not know God.  Christianity is the way to discover who God actually is.  To discover what Love actually is.   John tells us in 1 John 4:9-10 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.  This is what I want you to remember.  From St. John, 1 John 4:19:  St. John tells us:  We love because he first loved us  And it's up to us to take that love in, to let it reach to every corner of our being.  That doesn't sound easy.  And it's not as easy as it sounds.    Intro I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, a.k.a. Dr. Peter, clinical psychologist, trauma therapist, podcaster, blogger, cofounder and president of Souls and Hearts -- but most of all I am a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you to experience the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God the Father and our primary Mother Mary. What I want for you more than anything else is that you enter into a deep, intimate, personal, loving relationship with the three Persons of the Trinity and with our Lady. That is what this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast is all about, that is what Souls and Hearts is all about – all about shoring up the natural foundation for the spiritual life of intimacy with God, all about overcoming the natural human formation deficits and obstacles to contemplative union with God our Father and our Lady, our Mother  We are on an adventure of love together. Episode 94 of this podcast focused on the primacy of love in the Catholic life. Episode 95 focused on trauma's devastating impact on our capacity to love. Episode 96 discussed how trauma hardens us against being loved. Episode 97 discussed how trauma predisposes us to self-hatred and indifference, a refusal to love ourselves.  And episode 98, the last episode was all about ordered self-love, how we need to love ourselves in an ordered way in order to love God and neighbor, to carry out the two great Commandments. Today were to take a step back were to look at the most critical prerequisite for loving God and others. We are going to discuss being loved the first, accepting the love of God first. This is absolutely essential. The most critical mistake that most Catholics make is to refuse the love of God. Let me say that again.  The most critical mistake, the most devastating, catastrophic mistake that most Catholics make is to refuse to allow God's love to transform us entirely, to make us into new men and women.  Let us start out with The order of Loves God leads with love -- he goes first.  God makes the first move.  He moves toward us, we who He created, and who have fallen from grace because of original sin.  We don't make the first move.  God does.  He loved us first, and he continues to love us first  Sean Mitchell -- We Love Because He First Loved Us -- Those Catholic Men.   “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  These words from the first letter of John beautifully and succinctly sum up the origin and end of the Christian life—which, in a word, is love.  “Being Christian,” said Benedict XVI, “is…the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 1).  That “encounter” is our experience of God “first loving us.”  The “new horizon” that it opens up, the “decisive direction” that it gives to our lives, is love—our love of God and our neighbor because of His prior love of us.  To participate in that endless exchange of love is what it means to be a Christian.  It is the center from which all other aspects of the Christian life emanate.  I fear that a significant number of Catholic men miss this point and regard something other than love as the central point of being a follower of Christ. What I did not include from Benedict's quote above is what he says being Christian is not.  It is not, he says, “the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est).  To state that more generally, being Christian isn't primarily about my will or my intellect and what I do with them (i.e., make “ethical choices” and assent to “lofty ideas”).  Rather, it is first and foremost about my heart, my whole person in all its mystery, and what has been done to it by God.  Is it not the case, though, that so many of us fail to understand this?  If we're honest with ourselves, I think we would have to admit that it is, that we ourselves are among those men who place something other than love at (or at least close to) the center of our “Christian” life…even if we don't realize it. Comment on this Edward Vacek:  Love, Human and Divine: The Heart of Christian Ethics.  The sequence in loving and being loved.    (1) God affirms us; (2) God receives us; (3) we accept God's love; (4) we affirm God; (5) God forms community with us; (6) we cooperate with God in loving God in the world; and finally (7) we grow in a limited co-responsibility with God. p. 177 Genesis 3.   The trauma of original sin.   God comes looking for them -- God seeks them out -- hiding, fleeing from him in their shame and confusion and bitterness, in the trauma of original sin.   God calls out to them -- example of His gentleness.   No cursing of Adam and Eve.  The serpent is cursed, the ground is cursed.  Not Adam and Eve Provides clothing for them to help them with their shame.   Protects them from the Tree of Life.  Banishing them from the garden was an act of love -- if they had eaten from the tree of life, the Genesis 3:22- 24 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—  therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.  God making sure that they won't be separated from Him forever. St. Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis, 122 explains, “God did this lest this life-giving gift that they would receive through the tree of life become misery, and thus bring worse evil upon them than what they had already obtained from the tree of knowledge.  From the latter tree they obtained temporal pains, whereas the former tree would have made those pains eternal.  From the latter they obtained death which would have cast off from them the bonds of their pains.  The former tree, however, would have caused them to live as if buried alive, leaving them to be tortured eternally by their pains.”   The basic problem with the sequence -- not tolerating enough contact with God  to be affirmed, for Him to receive us. to understand Him in a radically different way.   And what kind of love is God's love for us?  God Himself tells us:  I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Jeremiah 31:3.  God is faithful to us.  He loves with an everlasting love.  Isaiah 54.10  For the mountains may depart     and the hills be removed,but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,    and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,    says the Lord, who has compassion on you. How steadfast is God's love:  Deuteronomy 7:9 tells us.  Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations Psalm 86:5 For thou, O Lord, art good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on thee. God requires a response from us.  -- abounding in steadfast love to all who call on thee.  We have to call on him, we have to respond to the love.   That is what this episode is all about.  This is episode 99 of the Interior Integration for Catholic podcast, released on November 7, 2022 titled IIC 99 Why We Catholics Reject God's Love for Us and How to Embrace that Love  CCC 221 But St. John goes even further when he affirms that "God is love": [1 John 4:8, 16] God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.  We have to take him up on that.   How do we know we are loved by God? -- 2 ways.   Faith and lived experience Faith  Infused virtue  CCC 150   Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature. CCC 153  When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come "from flesh and blood", but from "my Father who is in heaven".24 Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. "Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.'"25  Lived experience of the relationship with God.   2 Timothy 1:12 But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. Can feel it in consolations.   We don't want to engineer emotional experiences of closeness, manipulating emotions -- Concern about Catholic youth events, hyper emotional, noisy and using psychological techniques of influence to generated contrived emotional  experiences.  Hyping people up, getting them out of their window of tolerance.   We don't want to rely on our subjective experience of lived relationship Because the subjective experience of connection with God can vary way too much.   Von Hildebrand writes, “Our confidence in God must be independent of whether we experience His nearness, whether we sense the enlivening touch of grace, whether we feel ourselves being born on the wings of His love.” (p 210).  Mother Teresa 1957 confided to spiritual director:  In the darkness . . . Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me?  The child of your love — and now become as the most hated one. The one — you have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer . . . Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul.  Love — the word — it brings nothing.  I am told God lives in me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.  David Scott in chapter 17 of his book The Love That Made Mother Teresa wrote:  For more than fifty years following her initial visions and locutions, Mother Teresa was wrapped in a dark, pitiless silence. She only once more heard the voice of God, and she believed the doors of heaven had been closed and bolted against her. The more she longed for some sign of his presence, the more empty and desolate she became.   Needs Weekly Reflection:  from September 6, 2022:  The Top 10 Needs That Fuel Modern-Day Idol Worship  go to soulsandhearts.com/blog   Integrity Needs My need to exist and survive  My need to matter  My need to have agency  My need to be good  My need for mission and purpose in life   Attachment needs  --Brown and Elliott (2016) Felt sense of safety and protection -- have to go through the valley of shame, fear, anger, grief  Feeling seen, heard, known and understood -- have to tolerating being in relationship, being present.   Feeling comforted, soothed and reassured  Feeling cherished, treasured, delighted in  Feeling the other has your best interests at heart   Resistance to being loved Weaving in Integrity needs and attachment needs.   Main themes Limited vision and lack of imagination, leading to a refusal to be transformed by God  We don't understand God's love  The Costs of Being Loved by God  Poor God images  Poor Self images -- Shame  Refusal to be vulnerable, to be exposed, to be revealed to God.  Lack of courage.  Anger at God -- rebellion   Limited vision and lack of imagination, leading to a refusal to be transformed by God -- unhealthy satisfaction in far more limited spiritual goals -- a willingness to settle.  Von Hildebrand According to von Hildebrand, the vision of most Catholics is way too narrow – our sights are set way too low. We are satisfied with too little in the spiritual life – we are like chickens pecking at the ground when we are called to soar as eagles.  We may be content with merely avoiding sin, overcoming vices and developing virtues. Some of us may pursue the spiritual life as a self-improvement project, satisfied with incremental gains  Weekly reflection October 26, 2022 -- Why we resist change – and especially radical transformation.  Ransom Riggs Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children character Jacob Portman “One day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn't become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered." Love, in some sense, is nothing other than an invitation to great joy and suffering, so they shy away from it.  Paul Catalanotto Refusal to love is also refusal to live  The Catholic Weekly John 6: 41-42 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven'?”  John 6: vs. 60 and 66  Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. We don't understand God's love Isaiah 55:8-9  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Sharon Jaynes When Love Hurts April 17, 2018.  Proverbs31.org   “Mommy, Mommy,” Steven cried. “Don't let them hurt me!”My son, Steven, was about 3 years old when he contracted a severe case of the flu. His slumped body snuggled listlessly like an old, worn rag doll.When I carried him into the medical clinic, the doctor quickly diagnosed dehydration and immediately sent us to the hospital.My heart ripped apart as the nurses strapped my little boy onto a table and began placing IVs in his tiny arms.“Mommy, Mommy,” Steven cried. “Make them stop! They're hurting me.”“No, honey,” I tried to assure him. “They're going to make you all better.”“Mommy, help me!”Steven cried. I cried. The nurses cried.I could only imagine what was going through Steven's little mind. Why are these people hurting me? Why doesn't Mommy make them stop? She must not love me. She's not protecting me. If she loved me she wouldn't let them do this. She must not care about me.Standing in the corner watching my little boy cry, I wondered if that's how God feels when I'm going through a painful situation that's for my ultimate good. I cried out, “God, why are You letting this happen? Don't You love me? Don't You care about what's happening to me? Why don't You make it stop?” Can see the need to exist here being threatened.  I might be very injured, I might die.  Integrity need No felt sense of being protected -- attachment need.  In fact, just the opposite.  The little child was being protected, but didn't understand, didn't feel it.   No felt sense of being comforted or soothed, child not open to it.  Third primary condition of secure attachment No felt sense of support for his highest good.  Fifth condition of secure attachment.   Parts of us very young, like this 3-year-old.   Hebrews 12:11  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.  Poor view of discipline Bad experiences of being disciplined -- not having been disciplined out of love  But rather out of anger or inconvenience or frustration.   Freud -- gratification and frustration to grow.   The Costs of Being Loved by God  Real love, agape or charity, is always given freely -- we understand that much But real love, agape, charity -- real love is never received freely in this fallen world.  There is a cost to allowing real love into our lives.   Very little discussion about the costs of being loved by God.  I find that so strange.  So many Catholics don't think this way. It is as though Catholics have parts that believe that being loved by God is one of two things Being loved by God should easy, delightful, peaceful --  like being the lead character a Hallmark movie  Romance novels.  Easy love that just come naturally.    Emotional Junk food that nourishes illusions.   and when it's not, they conclude that God isn't loving them, or that they are excluded from His love Being loved by God is terrible Echoes of Hebrews 10:31    It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.   Burning away Real love -- Agape -- burns away things that are sinful within us -- it doesn't coexist with the vice within us.  Real love also purifies us from anything that is not morally wrote, but that is disordered or dysfunctional or imperfect  Real love is the greatest good.  And because it's the greatest good, it requires us to give up lesser goods.  Perceived good and actual goods.   Coping strategies, crutches that helped us in the past Analogy of the safe -- limited room, silver and gold.  1 Peter 1:7 So that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Isaiah 48:10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.   Zechariah 13:9 And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people'; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.'”  Proverbs 17:3  The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.  Job 23:10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.  Integrity needs I exist  I matter  I am good   Attachment needs Felt safety and protection  Felt comfort and reassurance  Felt sense of being cherished and delighted in.  No experience of that while being corrected, perfected.   xThe cost is up front -- the benefit in the future.   Poor God images We don't understand God.  We don't know who he is. -- reflected in the Sharon Jaynes' story of her son at the doctor's office.    Lack of confidence in God.  Lack of Faith   God Images =  My emotional and subjective experiences of God, who I feel God to be in the moment.  May or may not correspond to who God really is.  What I feel about God in my bones. This is my experiential sense how my feelings and how my heart interpret God. Each part, not in right relationship with the innermost self, has a distorted God image.   God images are often unconscious.     Initially God images are shaped by the relationship that I have with my parents.     My God images are heavily influenced by psychological factors  Different God images can be activated at different times, depending on my emotional states and what psychological mode I am in at a given time.   God images are always formed experientially; God images flow from our relational experiences and  Also how we construe and make sense of those images when we are very young.  My God images can be radically different than my God concept.  We all have heretical God images.   Differ from  God Concept  = What I profess about God.  It is my more intellectual understanding of God, based on what one has been taught, but also based on what I have explored through reading.  I decide to believe in my God concept.  Reflected in the Creed, expanded in the Catechism, formal teaching.   Can take a while to get to these God images -- not on the surface  We don't know God very well.   We refuse Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons And Everyday Spirituality :  Allow people to love you as they must love you, not as you want them to love you. Even God does not love us as we wish Him to. Learning to love is learning to accept love as it comes. I will lose the relationship with God that I have if I push the envelope And you will.  That is true.   Episodes 37-49 on God images.   Really hits on attachment needs.   Poor Self images -- Shame Self-images are much more emotionally driven, much more intuitive, subjective, and they vary a lot more from moment to moment.     Each part, not in right relationship with the innermost self, has a distorted self image.   Pastor Jonathan Edwards  Sinners in the Hand of an angry God, 1740s    “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire ... you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes, as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.”  Hiding from God.  Genesis 3.   I don't want to find out I am unlovable.  I can't bear that.   Episode 24 of this podcast, God images and self images.  Really hits on integrity needs.  Especially the need to be good.   Refusal to be vulnerable, to be exposed, to be revealed to God.  Because for love to be real, for love to be agape means me allowing you to love all of me.  All my parts.  My entire being Not just the acceptable parts of me in the shop window, those that I allow others to see.   Fears of being hurt one more time -- Fears of betrayal  Fears of abandonment   We think we can hide.   Self protection -- need to survive.  Need to be good.  Lack of courage. Philophobia -- fear of love  All of us have parts that fear love.  Comfort in the familiarity of the dysfunction we know.   Predictability Change is scary  Maureen Brady, Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse “For change to occur in us, we must be willing to enter the wilderness of the unknown and to wander in unfamiliar territory, directionless and often in the darkness....We do not need to keep every little thing under control. In fact, we find ourselves only by allowing some falling apart to happen.” Erica Jong:  I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back. Nelson Mandela:  I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Anger at God, Rebellion against Him. secondary to poor God images.  Anger is the ordered emotion in response to injustice.   What is a part?  Separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view.  Each part also has an image of God.   When parts are not integrated, under the leadership and guidance of my innermost self Self:  The core of the person, the center of the person.  This is who we sense ourselves to be in our best moments, and when our self is free, and unblended with any of our parts, it governs our whole being as an active, compassionate leader.   Parts in greater detail -- discussed my parts in Episode 71 A New and Better Way of Understanding Myself and Others.   Good Boy Evaluator (formerly "the Critic") Melancholio Adventurer (formerly my "part who holds fear") Feisty One (formerly my "angry part") Challenger (formerly "the Rebel") Lover Part Collaborator Parts (formerly my Competent Part) Guardian (formerly "the Intimidator") Creative Part Consequences -- Hell Nothing can separate us from God's love.   Romans 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate you from the love of God, not even demons -- angel and principalities.  Nothing can separate you from the love of God.  With one exception.  You.   Only you can separate you from the love of God.  Only you have the power to do that, by refusing to let that love come it. That's what sin is.  It's separating ourselves from God.  Sin is damaging our relationship with God.    Separation happens  Jesus weeping over Jerusalem Luke 19:41-44  And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side,  and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation. It's not that God won't protect Jerusalem.  It's that he could not protect the Israelites, not without violating their freedom, not without forcing Himself on them.   Matthew 7:13-14   “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Pope John Paul II  in a 1999 audience, God did not create Hell.  Hell  “… is not a punishment imposed externally by God but a development of premises already set by people in this life.” Catechism of the Catholic Church edited by Archbishop Rino Fisichella 2019 by Our Sunday Visitor Louis Ladaria:  To be precise, God did not make Hell.  His free creatures make it, inasmuch as they separate themselves from Him. Nor does God send anyone to Hell: it is the damned one who separates himself and does not want to enter into the Father's house. God, St. Irenaeus said, does not really look to punish the damned, but as they are deprived of all good things, it is the penalty that pursues them (Adversus Haereses, V. 27, 2; a similar idea in St. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 5, 10: God abandons the sinner to his evil, he does not, properly speaking, give evil to anyone). Because of this, and despite what is said sometimes, we need to insist on the fact that Hell does not say anything against the infinite goodness of God. (p. 863).  Dean Koontz: The Book of Counted Sorrows:  “We make Hell real; we stoke its fires. // And in its flames our hope expires.   CCC 30 Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. CCC 1037  God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance. Not trying to catch us, not with a hand on the trap door to hell.   Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC  “Ask a Priest: If God loves us so much, why does hell exist?”  An analogy might help. Imagine you are on a ship that is searching for survivors from a sunken ocean liner. You see a passenger struggling in the waves behind you. You throw a lifeline to him, but he refuses to grab it. You beg him to take hold of the lifeline, but he ignores your plea. Eventually, he sinks below the waves and drowns. Does his drowning indicate that you were indifferent? When you begged him to grab the lifeline, were you displaying hate? Was his drowning your fault?  The answer to all these questions is: no. The person in the water, for whatever reason, refused your help. His drowning was the consequence. It doesn't matter why we flee from God and why we flee from His love.   Hell as isolation -- cut off from everyone.   Images of hell   Hell as isolation Tekla Babyak in 2018 article Dante, Liszt and the alienated agon of hell writes:  Dante Alighieri's Inferno portrays Hell as an alienated realm in which the doomed spirits must spend eternity in isolation and regret.  Deepest level of hell, the ninth circle:    "The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remorseless dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God's love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice." John Ciardi, Inferno, notes on Canto XXXII, p. 248 Satan encased waist deep in ice.  Not fire.   Celeste Ng  Little Fires Everywhere character of Mia Warren “In all her years of itinerant living, Mia had developed one rule: Don't get attached to any place, to any apartment, to anything. To anyone.”   In Hell on earth Fragmentation of Dante's inferno -- lived now.   Dietrich Bonhoeffer  Life Together  “Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he comes involved in it, the more disastrous his isolation.”  Sharon M. Draper  Out of My Mind  character Melody Brooks  “It's like I live in a cage with no door and no key. And I have no way to tell someone how to get me out.”  Sue Johnson Hold Me Tight   “Isolation and the potential loss of loving connection is coded by the human brain into a primal panic response.”  C.S. Lewis:  The Great Divorce:  “That is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, “we have never lived anywhere except in heaven,' and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.”   Action Plan  Pray Set aside the time.  First thing  Personal Prayer: A Guide for Receiving the Fathers' Love Fr. Thomas Acklin and Fr. Boniface Hicks.  Benedictines, very wise, good grasp of psychology.   Prayer Primer or Fire Within Fr. Thomas Dubay   Read the first letter of John. Lectio Divina Dan Burke Spiritual Direction.com Lectio Divina, A Guide: What it is & How It helps Prayer Life  Appendix on Lectio Divina in Fr. Jacques Philippe's book Called to Life  Section on Lectio Divina titled "mediating on Scripture in Fr. Jacques Philippe's book Thirsting for Prayer   Nike Model -- just do it.  Set aside perfectionism, desire to do it well. You're not going to do it well.  You're going to do it badly.   The most important things in life we either do badly or we don't do at all.   St. Therese of Avila. says: “He who neglects mental prayer needs not a devil to carry him to hell, but he brings himself there with his own hands.”   St. John of the Cross says: “Without the aid of mental prayer, the soul cannot triumph over the forces of the demon.”  St. Teresa of Avila “Prayer is an exercise of love.” (Life 7:12)   Do your human formation work Relational spirituality -- about relationship  Any difficulties you have in relationships in the natural realm, here on earth -- you are going to bring into your spiritual relationships.   Interior integration  Why is interior integration crucial for union with God?  Weekly reflection October 12, 2022  soulsandhearts.com/blog.   Get to know your parts Reason for not praying   Jay Earley -- Self Therapy Vol. 1.  Now in the Third Edition.    Bonnie Weiss Self-Therapy Workbook.   Means Therapy or counseling -- especially Internal Family Systems therapy with a therapist who is Catholic or who at least respects your Catholic Faith and will not undermine it.   Experiential Exercise -- November 21.  Splitting those out.   Resilient Catholic Community -- you do not have to be alone.   Reopening December 1 -- new cohort Get to know your parts I've brought together the best Wait list -- email on November 10.  Sign up soulsandhearts.com/rcc If interested, contact me.   Crisis@soulsandhearts.com 317.567.9594 conversation hours 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern Time Every Tuesday and Thursday.  (not November 17 -- online conference).   Pray for me  Sent the word out.  Let people know about our offerings at Souls and Hearts, this podcast, the weekly reflections.  Sign up for those - email.  Can see the archive at soulsandhearts.com/blog   Patroness and Patron  

We're going to talk about love in this episode. Although it is the factor that binds every one of us together, love is frequently viewed as the dirtiest word in the business world. I'm going to discuss with you today how to add more love and connection to both our personal and professional lives.   The meditation in this episode is incredibly powerful.  Make sure to take the time to pause the buzz of your everyday life and reconnect with yourself, your business, and your vision through the power of love.   This episode will teach you how to:   Make connections with others Get in touch with yourself Understand how to succeed and advance in your field!   Here's an inside look at this episode:    [2:05] The Power of Love   [5:30] Love Is The Cure For Anxiety And Burnout   [6:30] The Alignment and Misalignment of Love    [8:31] Giving and receiving love    [11:34] Reset Yourself to Love and Alignment     [12:21] Mantra for Loving and Being Loved    [14:48] Meditation For Love and Connection   [22:26] What Love Is and Can Do Connect with me!     Do you feel overpowered, drained, confined, or trapped?   I'll help you rediscover your mojo. So that you can prosper and realign with your abundance again! Get your FREE copy of the "Beat The Burnout Monster" Recalibration Guide now to regain your glow and cash flow!    Podcast Instagram: The Flourishing Entrepreneur FM Website: Flourish Marketing | Strategy, Copywriting & Coaching Schedule a Discovery Call: Discovery Call 

  Summary:  Real love (agape) is given freely -- but it is not received freely in our fallen human condition.  Join me in this episode as we discuss the costs of opening our hearts to loveand the price of being loved fully, of being loved completely, in all of our parts.  We review why so many people refuse to be loved -- and we examine the psychological and human formation reasons for turning away from love.  Finally we discuss what we can do to get over our natural-level impediments to receiving love.   Lead-in  I am a rock I am an island I've built wallsA fortress deep and mightyThat none may penetrateI have no need of friendship -- friendship causes painIt's laughter and it's loving I disdainI am a rock I am an island I am a rock -- Paul Simon wrote it in 1965 and Simon and Garfunkel  Released it as a single in 1966, and it rose to #3 on the charts -- why because it resonated with people.  It was popular because it spoke out loud what many people's parts feel.   The desire to become a rock, the impulse to build the walls, to keep everyone out, to repudiate love and laughter, to not need anything or anyone.    Kate McGahan -- untitled poem   I don't need anyone, I said.Then you cameI need I need! I NEED YOU. I needed you.What did you teach me?Not to need you.NOT TO NEED. -  I don't want to be in love, anymore. I just want to be left alone. And no, I am not depressed or something. No suicide is happening here... I am fine. Trust me. Sharmajiassamwale So you want love.  But you also don't want love.  But you want love.  But you don't.  You do.  You don't.  You're conflicted.  How do you understand this conflict within you?  Can you and I understand this push-pull, this attraction - avoidance, this Yes and No within us more clearly.  Yes we can.  And we must.  Or we will wind up always skating along the edge of love, never really entering in.  And there are consequences for that -- and no one put it more succinctly than the English poet and playwright Robert Browning, who said: “Without love, our earth is a tomb”   Intro We do want to be loved, but we don't.  Why?  Because we want the benefits of love, but we don't want the costs   The Benefits To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.  David Viscott  If you don't have that memory of being loved, you are condemned to search the world for something to fill you up. -- Michael Jackson The costs.  Real love is given freely, but it is not received freely in this fallen world.   Almost no one talks about the costs of being loved.  I find that so strange.  People don't think this way.  There are costs to receiving love, to accepting love, to allowing love in to our hearts.   It's painful to be loved in this fallen world.  this is not well understood by many people, especially those who are not in touch with trauma, or who haven't suffered as much as others Bernard Brady's 2003 book "Christian Love: How Christians Through the Ages have Understood Love  Second sentence of the book, in the preface:  "Loving seems entirely natural and being loved seems wonderfully good." Not to many people RCC member -- so glad you can discuss tolerating being loved.     Real love -- Agape -- burns away things that are sinful within us -- it doesn't coexist with the vice within us. Bernard Brady: Christian Love, p. 16:  "…love transforms those who love and those who are loved."   Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.”   ― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love Change is scary “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment    Real love also purifies us from anything that is not morally wrote, but that is disordered or dysfunctional or imperfect Real love is the greatest good.  And because it's the greatest good, it requires us to give up lesser goods.  Perceived good and actual goods.   Coping strategies, crutches that helped us in the past Analogy of the safe -- limited room, silver and gold.  Vulnerability I will lose what I have I will lose to possibility of being loved in the future I don't want to find out I am unlovable.  I can't bear that.    Because for love to be real, for love to be agape means me allowing you to love all of me.  All my parts.  My entire being Not just the acceptable parts of me in the shop window, those that I allow others to see.   The greatness of the adventure of loving can be intimidating Love, in some sense, is nothing other than an invitation to great joy and suffering, so they shy away from it.  Paul Catalanotto Refusal to love is also refusal to live  The Catholic Weekly  Dietrich von Hildrebrand those who "wish to linger with small joys in the state of harmless happiness … in which they feel themselves to be master of the situation … lacking any element of surprise or adventure.   Let's go on this adventure of being loved and loving together.  I want you to come with me into the themes of this podcast.  I want you to really engage with what I'm presenting to you.  Not just listen like the Athenians listened to Paul about the resurrection of the dead.  Acts 17:32: Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.”  But they weren't really that interested.  Only a few of the Athenians joined him.  Stay with me in this Episode 96 of Interior Integration for Catholics, released on August 1, 2022, and titled "I Am a Rock: How Trauma Hardens us Against Being Loved" I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic and I am very pleased that we can share and engage with this information. Why do I think being loved is so important?   First because receiving love is absolutely essential.  It is our starting point in the spiritual life.  And second, because most people will not realxly allow themselves to be loved. Psychiatrist and Harvard Professor George Valliant wrote:  It's very hard, for most of us to tolerate being loved.-- That's been my experience as well.  The vast majority of people have chosen to severely limit how much love they will let in, how much love they will tolerate.   You can't love unless you are willing to be loved.   1 John 4:19:  We love because he first loved us  Look at the order here.  God loved us first.  We can't generate any love on our own.  We can reflect love, we can channel love, but we can't create love out of nothing like God can.  We have to cooperate in love and be open to love in order to love, in order to follow the two great commandments.   That is what this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast is all about -- it's about preparing the way for you to have a much deeper, richer and much more intimate relationship with God in the three Person of the Trinity -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and with the Blessed Virgin Mary our Mother.  A deep, personal relationship with God and Mary.  That's what  I want from you.  And if you won't tolerate taking in real love, if you deprive yourself of real love, you are going to wind up in a de facto hell on earth.  The most miserable people on earth are the loveless people -- loveless not because no one will love them -- but loveless because they actively or passively reject love.  And so many people do that.   And there are spiritual consequences to cutting ourselves off from real love.  Our heart become small, they become hard, they become closed, they become fearful, they fester in wounds.  And if we persist in refusing to be loved and to love, there is no other place for us to be in the afterlife than in hell.  That's what I think hell is -- a place for those who have refused love.  That's how serious all of this is.  Eternal consequences of the highest order.    Hallmark Movie Love What so many of our parts really want is what I call Hallmark movie love -- in Latin, this is rendered "Lovus Hallmarkius"  Hallmark love.  Yes, I've given it a ridiculous translation, but that because Hallmark love is not only a ridiculous concept, it's a dangerous one.  I mean it.  Really Dr. Peter -- all those sweet, feel-good Christmas movies?  What are you some kind of grinch, to criticize Hallmark movies?  I mean really, come on.. That's a bit much.  Hear me out, hear me out.   What is Hallmark love -- love is always just around the corner, painless, fun.  They are delightful.  Love is so gratifying and enjoyable, love takes away suffering. Clean and tidy.   It's a myth.  The Hallmark company is selling illusions.  Their movie production arm is peddling falsehoods about love to an audience who wants what they are offering to be true.  But it isn't.   Kristine Brown captured this theme in her online article Living in a Hallmark Movie  December 11, 2015  I want to live in a Hallmark movie.  I want to walk down the cobblestone Main Street into the corner coffee shop where everyone greets you with a smile and a Merry Christmas. I want to move to a new town where you immediately become acquainted with everyone and your child makes instant friends at school and there's always time to bake Christmas cookies and decorate trees and drink hot cocoa with peppermint sticks. I want to live in a Hallmark movie. I want to walk my child to school holding hands and have him tell me how much he loves me and what a great mom I am. I want to live where kids don't make bad choices and parents don't make mistakes. Where the toughest decision is whether to stay in the small town where you grew up or chase after a promising dream in the big city. Where things always just work out. And the movie always ends with a kiss from your true love and snow. Always snow. But life isn't a Hallmark movie, not even close. Example of the life of Christ -- the greatest lover ever, who died in making the greatest act of love ever, and it was nothing like a Hallmark movie.  We assume that we want love -- and we do.  Or parts of us do Made for love and in love -- That's a beautiful line in the Litanies of the Heart, written by Dr. Gerry for Souls and Hearts -- "Lord Jesus, you created me in love, for love."   Colossians 3:14  And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.   Discussion of Parts Reference Episode 71: A New and Better Way of Understanding Myself and Others   Definition of Parts:  Separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view.  Each part also has an image of God and a whole religion developed around its understanding of God, self, and the relationship between God and self.   Parts have different roles within the self system.  Narrow slice of experience, very limited vision.   Some parts don't care about being loved.  They are focused on never being hurt like that again.  They are focused on protection from harm, defending the self system against threats from others, very protective.  IIC 89:  Your Trauma, Your Body: Protection vs. Connection Conflict “I wished I didn't need an ocean of space to feel comfortable. I still wanted to be loved. Yet again I felt like two people: one who desperately needed a hug, and one who would break apart at the slightest touch. How could I get people to keep their distance without leaving completely? How long would it take for them to get tired of the way I flinched and evaded?” ― Ruby Walker, Advice I Ignored: Stories and Wisdom from a Formerly Depressed Teenager   Using a metaphor to describe how trauma hardens us against being loved  Overview Roots = unresolved trauma  Single trunk -- shame  Five Main stems -- acronym CRIES -- as in cries for help.    C R I E S -- Each of these main stems is driven by shame in the trunk, shame that results from the unresolved trauma in the roots.   Cognitions Relationships Identity Emotions Spirituality Each main stem has branches -- branches that cross and interweave in this big bush  And the branches have fruits.   Roots -- Unresolved trauma This includes the original trauma, original sin.   Underground, not seen --  Check out Episodes 88 and 89 -- a lot about the nature of trauma in those episodes  Primary effect of unresolved trauma is shame.   Single Trunk -- Shame Discussed shame at great length in Episodes 37 to 49 of this podcast.  Definitions of shame in episode 37:  Shame is:  a primary emotion, a bodily reaction, a signal,  a judgement, and an action.   I encourage you to go through those episodes again -- really get a grip on shame, because understanding shame is the key to understanding almost all psychological dysfunction, and understanding shame is the key to really comprehending why you have difficulties with your human formation.  Can't stress that enough.   Shame -- the central role of shame. Issue of survival.  Life and death.  Deep assumptions that my shame is so bad that it will kill me.  Our protector parts assume they have a need to defend against our exiled parts that have burdens of shame -- protectors believe they have to keep the shame out of awareness, keep it buried, distant.  They don't know that we can work with shame and the parts that carry the shame in collaborative, cooperative, constructive ways.  Our protector parts don't know that shame can be resolved -- the burden of shame can be lifted and there can be healing.   “When you're a child trapped in a situation of physical or psychological deprivation, you learn shame as an efficient, elegant mechanism of survival: shame simultaneously shields you from the reality that danger is out of your control (since the problem is not that you're unloved and deprived; it's that you're Bad) and prevents you from doing or saying anything challenging that might provoke a threat.” ― Kai Cheng Thom, I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World Go back and really get the shame piece of this.   Main Stems off the trunk:  Cognitions, Relationships, Identity, Emotions, Spirituality -- Acronym CRIES  Emotions  Stem:  Five aspects Grief, Anger, Fear, Flooding, Shutdown  -- GAFFS -- so many of these emotions are generated by the shame that results from unresolved trauma Love is affective -- Bernard Brady -- discussed this at length in episode 94  Love is a movement from your heart, your soul -- a movement from the innermost depths of your being.  From your core self.  So the emotions are intimately involved with love   Grief  Emotional reaction to deep sense of loss.   Sadness about what you don't have that you need.   Parts want to be seen and heard and known and loved by the one who might love you.  All of you wanting to be loved.  All of you wanting to be healed.  So parts surge up, wanting to come to the surface.   Parts that carry grief have never been loved -- never been connected with in an emotional way, never been included in relationship with your innermost self or with others.  Never been seen. Anticipatory Grief -- if I allow myself to be love, I could lose that love.  The one who loves me could die.     Fear -- this is an emotion that drives so much fleeing from love.  This really is the big one.   Philophobia -- fear of love  All of us have parts that fear love.  Being loved arouses anxiety because it threatens long-standing psychological defenses formed early in life in relation to emotional pain and rejection, therefore leaving a person feeling more vulnerable.  Robert Firestone Fears of being revealed Fears of vulnerability Fears of loneliness Fear of the unknown Fears of being hurt one more time -- like Charlie Brown and Lucy and the football, winding up flat on your back again. Fears of betrayal  Fears of abandonment So much of this fear is driven by shame.   All this fear is a barrier to being loved.   “To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”  Betrand Russell All the bruised lives, searching hearts ... Everyone wants a love story but few will risk what it takes to live one. - Donna Lynn Hope Flooding:  Emotional overwhelm -- flooding.  Emotions become all dysregulated. Hyperarousal -- moving into fight or flight mode.  Intensity of emotions because very great. Often because old emotions from previous unresolved trauma are welling up -- parts that carry the burden of intense emotions want to be seen, heard, known and understood, they no longer want to be exiled, banished into the unconscious -- they want a voice, they want relationship they want redemptions.  Paul Simon  Don't talk of loveWell I've heard the word beforeIt's sleeping in my memoryI won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have diedIf I never loved I never would have criedI am a rock I am an island  “Our biggest challenge is that we have an overwhelming desire for an extraordinary love story but low capacity to hold space for it in our nervous system.”  ― Lebo Grand Dietrich von Hildebrand:  Fear of losing oneself in intense joys or griefs   Anger So much of this anger is driven by fear driven by shame  Our protector parts can use anger to distract from fear and grief.   Behind every angry soul is a wounded child that just wanted you to love them for who they are. Shannon L. Alder  Shutting down Avoiding inner experiences is one of Nathanson's four defensive scripts for avoiding shame.   Hypoarousal -- moving down out of the window of tolerance to the freeze mode.   Example of an electrical panel, or breaker panel v-- metal box with a door down in the basement or utility closet  with the main and the circuit breakers   Fruit: We have a very difficult time tolerating being loved when we are not in our window of tolerance.  Fight or flight mode or freeze mode -- we move very much into self-protection, to a focus on survival, on just perpetuating our existence.   We're not open to love -- we've moved into survival mode, not seeking connection.   We're not open to God.    Fr. Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace:  The more our soul is peaceful and tranquil, the more God is reflected in it, the more His grace acts through us.  On the other hand, if our soul is agitated and troubled, the grace of God is able to act only with much greater difficulty… God is a God of peace.  He does not operate except in peace, not in trouble and agitation.  We need that emotional regulation, that sense of being in our window of tolerance to be able to connect with God.  So many times fear is identified as a barrier   Fear as a result of shame drove Adam and Eve into the bushes -- hiding from God John 14:27:  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Cognition Stem  Perceptions extremely sensitive to stimuli  Very vigilant -- scanning for threats in the environment   Negative self-talk I am unloved  I am unlovable  I don't deserved to be loved -- bred in families where there is conditional love -- unattainable ideals of perfection  I will be seen and I will see myself.   I might contaminate anyone who would love me with my badness.   I won't live up to the love.   Doubts fostered about goodness in the world, about the nature of others Skepticism about who actually makes the effort to love  Demanding perfection from others before trying again.  To have the chance of being loved we have to take a chance on being destroyed inside -- Jo Nesbo Pessimistic evaluation of the future No one will love me  I will be deceived, tricked and then betrayed, rejected, abandoned   Distractions Paul Simon:   I have my booksAnd my poetry to protect meI am shielded in my armor  Fruit we can dwell inwardly, on our own damage -- we can focus on our wounds.  Direct our attention to all the things that are wrong with us and pull inward -- self-absorption, ruminating and obsessing about our defects, curling up inside to protect ourselves, not letting anyone in.  So common.   Or we can reach out and embrace love anyway.  We can trust that parts of us may be seeing things inaccurately, thinking about things in ways that are distorted.   Identity Stem  Drawing from Robert Firestone's  Why Do So Many People Respond Negatively to Being Loved? article on psychalive.org  I am inadequate, unworthy of love “We accept the love we think we deserve.”– Stephen Chbosky   Being valued or seen in a positive light is confusing because it conflicts with the negative self-concept that many people form within their family.  Firestone Being loved can provoke an identity crisis  Firestone Your identity, at least for some of your parts, can be very bound up in being unloved and unloveable   Parts may not know who you are if you were loved -- such a radical change Very disconcerting to lose a sense of who I am, even if the identity is a negative one.   Comfort in the familiarity of the dysfunction I know -- so I accept and even seek out rejection and failure -- they are familiar and harmonize with my life narrative.   Deep sense of having to earn conditional love.  But that is not what love is about “Love is not concerned with a person's accomplishments, it is a response to a person's being: This is why a typical word of love is to say: I love you, because you are as you are.” ― Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Art of Living   Little or no ordered self-love -- we will be discussing ordered self love in the next episode.  One of Nathanson's four strategies to cope with shame is to attack the self.   Internal disconnects to survive the trauma -- horror of abuse  Love relationships pull for integration Love is never fragmented; it's an inseparable whole which does not delight in bits and pieces. John A. Andrews  And that integration will bring up the parts of ourselves that we have rejected as too scary, too unacceptable, too unlovable, too dangerous, too overwhelming, too much in some way to be allowed a seat at the table of our consciousness.   Takes a lot of courage to really be loved.   Ursula Wirtz, Trauma and Beyond: The Mystery of Transformation “I consider love to be the matrix for this transformation, which calls new being into existence. Love has the power to reawaken and bring to the fire what has been entombed or distorted by traumatic forces or has retreated out of defensiveness and self-protection. Without love and compassion for the fragility of human identity in the face of death and the reality of evil, the madness found in these barren spaces of the soul might not be meaningfully encountered. For the stripping away of the constricting cocoon of traumatic fixations and the untangling of what has become distorted and convoluted during painful traumatization, love is needed.”  ―  Fruit -- will we let our burdened parts define ourselves-- will we let those traumatized parts of us, and the parts that guard us from those traumatize parts be the ones to determine who we are -- with their limited vision and their narrow slice of experience -- or can we work gently with ourselves and allow ourselves to be seen through the eyes of those who do love us.   Relationship Love affirms the other, love responds to the other, love is unitive -- love is steadfast more of Bernard Brady's characteristics of Agape, of real love described in episode 94   Effects of Shame Lack of trust in others   Lack of confidence How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved. Sigmund Freud  Fear of exposure To myself  To the one who loves me   “To be deeply loved, means a willingness to cut yourself wide open, exposing your vulnerabilities... hopes, hurts, fears and flaws. Hiding behind the highlight reel of who you are, is the real you and that person is just as worthy of love. There is nothing more terrifying or fulfilling, than complete love, it's worth the risk... reach for it.”  ― Jaeda DeWalt Fear of rejection The fear of rejection makes sense: If we've had a steady diet of shame, blame, and criticism, we learned that the world is not a safe place. Something within us mobilizes to protect our tender heart from further stings and insults .The Hidden Reasons We Don't Let Love In  -- John Amodeo Ph.D., MFT   The one who loves me will hurt me. It's inevitable   Fruit in the Behaviors -- all focused around protection from the other leading to relationship sabotage Undue criticism of the other --you are not enough for me.  Withdrawal and isolation -- one of Nathanson's strategies for coping with shame. Paul Simon Hiding in my room safe within my wombI touch no one and no one touches meI am a rock I am an islandAnd a rock feels no painAnd an island never cries  Avoidance  Pursuing unavailable people I found myself in a pattern of being attracted to people who were somehow unavailable, and what I realized was that I was protecting myself because I equate the idea of connection and love with trauma and death.” ― Zachary Quinto Pushing others away Basically, love is scary when it contrasts with childhood trauma. In that situation, the beloved feels compelled to act in ways that hurt the lover: behaving in a punitive manner, distancing themselves and pushing love away.  Robert Firestone  “You push people away, Marley. You don't realise it, but you do. You close yourself off to anyone and anything that doesn't fit in your perfect little hamster ball of life. But you can't experience love only on your own terms. It doesn't work that way.”  ― Kate Lattey, Dream On Aggression -- Fueled by anger. Attacking others is one of Nathanson's four strategies of coping with shame.  Why do we attack?  We are afraid, we are struggling with shame.     “Those who love to be feared fear to be loved, and they themselves are more afraid than anyone, for whereas other men fear only them, they fear everyone.     St. Francis de Sales   Emotionally disconnecting from the relationship Out of anger. Harden my Heart -- 1982 Hit Sung by Quarterflash  … I'm gonna harden my heart, I'm gonna swallow my tears, I'm gonna turn and leave you here  Out of fear and shame   “Many freeze types unconsciously believe that people and danger are synonymous, and that safety lies in solitude. Outside of fantasy, many give up entirely on the possibility of love. The freeze response, also known as the camouflage response, often triggers the individual into hiding, isolating and eschewing human contact as much as possible. This type can be so frozen in retreat mode that it seems as if their starter button is stuck in the ‘off' position. It is usually the most profoundly abandoned child - ‘the lost child' - who is forced to ‘choose' and habituate to the freeze response… Unable to successfully employ fight, flight or fawn responses, the freeze type's defenses develop around classical dissociation.” ― Pete Walker Dietrich von Hildebrand -- shrinking away from commitment.   Difficulties receiving partial, incomplete, imperfect love -- as replacements for God's love Glazed carrots.  Side dish, not the main entrée.   Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons And Everyday Spirituality :  Allow people to love you as they must love you, not as you want them to love you. Even God does not love us as we wish Him to. Learning to love is learning to accept love as it comes   Spiritual Disconnecting from God, who is love.   Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.  Blaise Pascal We to love God to know Him  And so we have to find him lovable -- and so often parts of us don't find him lovable.   Need for Faith and Hope -- Infused virtues.   To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us. Timothy Keller everyone wants perfect love... no one wants to be a perfect lover... - Author: Brijesh Singh   Being loved by God is often even more difficult I John 4:8  "…God is love."  Issues around God images (IIC 23-29)  God is not as tangible, immediate  Transferences to God  Projections onto God.   Edward Vacek:  Love, Human and Divine: The Heart of Christian Ethics.  The sequence in loving and being loved.    (1) God affirms us; (2) God receives a; (3) we accept God's love; (4) we affirm God; (5) God forms community with us; (6) we cooperate with God in loving God in the world; and finally (7) we grow in a limited code responsibility with God. p.. 177 Problems with the sequence -- not tolerating enough contact with God  to be affirmed, to understand him in a totally different way.   1 John 4:19:  We love because he first loved us   Active vs. passive refusal to be loved.   Active refusals to be loved are more obvious Passive refusals to be loved are more common.   Five attachment tasks Felt sense of safety and protection -- have to go through the valley of shame, fear, anger, grief  Feeling seen, heard, known and understood -- have to tolerating being in relationship, being present.   Feeling comforted, soothed and reassured  Feeling cherished, treasured, delighted in   “If your parents' faces never lit up when they looked at you, it's hard to know what it feels like to be loved and cherished. If you come from an incomprehensible world filled with secrecy and fear, it's almost impossible to find the words to express what you have endured. If you grew up unwanted and ignored, it is a major challenge to develop a visceral sense of agency and self-worth.” ― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Feeling the other has your best interests at heart Love heals The more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love. — Bruce D. Perry  “Love alone brings a human being to full awareness of personal existence. For it is in love alone that man finds room enough to be what he is.” ― Dietrich von Hildebrand, Man, Woman, and the Meaning of Love   “Trauma ruptures and hollows. Compassion mends and fills; love heals.” ― Na'ama Yehud There you have it from a trauma researcher, a philosopher, and a writer --  Example of Sr. Josephine Bakhita Born about 1869 in the village of Olgossa in the Darfur region of Sudan. She was a member of the Daju people  Uncle was a tribal chief, well-to-do family  At age 8, kidnapped by slave traders, forcerd to walk barefoot 600 miles to a slave market  Over the next 12 years, bought and sold many times, at least 12 times  Trauma of the abduction -- Forgot her given name in captivity -- consider that - - a loss of identity   Owners varied in their treatment of her.  Some were sadists  Family of  Turkish general Josephine wrote that as soon as one wound would heal, they would inflict another.  another woman drew patterns on her skin with flour, then cut into her flesh with a blade. She rubbed the wounds with salt to make the scars permanent. She would suffer a total of 114 scars from this abuse. A total of 114 intricate patterns were cut into her breasts, belly and into her right arm   I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me --  I am awaited by this Love.  Action Plan You gotta pray   Point is to focus on developing the relationship with the Persons of the Trinity and with Mary -- as a little child, a little son or daughter.   Litanies of the Heart - the Litany of the Closed Heart the litany of the fearful heart, the litany of the wounded heart.  Soulsandhearts.com/lit Books Intimacy in Prayer -- Personal Prayer:  A Guide for Receiving the Father's Love -- by Frs. Thomas Acklin and Boniface Hicks.  Fr. Jacques Philippe -- Time for God -- excellent guide for learning pray from a more relational perspective.  I also like Fr. Jacques Philippe's book The way of Trust and Confidence  Fr. Thomas Dubay -- Fire Within -- more of a Carmelite approach.  If you haven't been to confession recently, go.  If you feel like you can't go, I want to hear about it.   Calling all Catholic therapists and -- Interior Therapist Community is starting our fall groups.   80 therapists and graduate students in mental health fields in community -- each of us working on our own human formation, but not in isolation.  New Foundations experiential groups are forming -- and we have advanced groups.   2022 Webinar Series: Of Beams and Specks: Therapist-Focused Consultation - Peter Malinoski  $30 Soulsandhearts.com/itc -- call me at 317.567.9594 or email at crisis@soulsandhearts.com  Weekly reflection -- related to this podcast, delivered to your inbox every Wednesday --  We do get around to archiving them in the blog section of our website -- soulsandhearts.com/blog Conversation hours -- every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern Time call me at 317.567.9594 or email at crisis@soulsandhearts.com.  If I don't pick up, I'm on another call leave a voicemail.   Patroness and Patron.

Remembering the Benefits of Being Loved by God - Mike Hudgins 7.24.2022 Notes: https://vcchurch.com/s/2207Benefits.pdf Continue reading →

In this very special and heartwarming episode Tomer Strolight returns for the third time to discuss five more of his wonderful pieces. We cover Beautiful Bitcoin, Why Bitcoin is the World's Most Inclusive Institution, Why Bitcoin is the Path to Economic Stability, Why Bitcoin is Worthy of Being Loved and Why Bitcoin is a Declaration of Peace. I specifically chose these particular pieces from Tomer's amazing catalog because I felt that we all could use some more beauty, honor, inclusiveness, optimism, wonder and wisdom during these interesting times that we now find ourselves in.  I hope that you enjoy this rip as much as I did.  SwanBitcoin is by far the easiest and most affordable way to accumulate Bitcoin with automatic recurring purchases. Just set it and forget it! Start your plan today and get $10 of free Bitcoin dropped into your account if you use my link Swanbitcoin.com/Matrix You bought a hardware wallet right? So you take your bitcoin security seriously, now go that extra step and secure it from physical disaster with a CypherWheel seed storage device.  Go to cyphersafe.io to keep your Sats Safe and use the code Matrix for 10% off your order. If you want to support the show and see us so grow so that we can continue to bring you the freshest and dopest conversations in the space, make sure to subscribe and give us a 5 star rating on your favorite podcast platform. Please tell your friends and family about the Bitcoin Matrix podcast and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to support the show with sats, value for value style you can now stream the Bitcoin Matrix podcast on the Fountain app.  Follow Tomer Strolight on Twitter: @TomerStrolight Free Bitcoin Book! Why Bitcoin is a collection of short essays exploring the "why" behind Bitcoin. Get it for free at https://event.swanbitcoin.com/whybitcoin/ Follow Cedric Youngelman on Twitter: @CedYoungelman Follow the Bitcoin Matrix Podcast on Twitter: @_BitcoinMatrix

To realign our hearts with God's, we need to understand this first calling: Being Loved

Today Kevin is joined by Kyree Oliver, a 27-year-old cigar-smoking, motorcycle-riding, former Division-1 football player who has made a name for himself in the online space as a top-performing digital marketer. With over $85M (yes, that's MILLION) in revenue generated for his clients in Facebook ads, Kyree is in the top .05% of expert marketers. In this episode, we dive into Kyree's journey on how he manages his time doing business and coaching clients in helping them gain success with no further ado here's Kyree. [00:01 - 04:14] Opening Segment Kyree tells us about Playing collegiate football and his experience walking away from it after an injury. Figuring out how to get the most life experience in the shortest amount of time possible. How Kyree started interviewing friends and family members, and later on different people with interesting professions. Doing marketing for a friend while having no marketing background, Kyree realizes its importance and how it correlates with human behavior. [04:14 - 09:20] Being Loved at The Expense of Respect or Being Respected at the Expense of Love. He shares about his marketing business and how he manages a solo team structure taking a few projects at a time to pave way for coaching clients. Kyree talks about his ideal coaching client; Making sure that his clients recognize the importance of balance Between time and money Growing up being a Big-brown-tattooed guy in an all-white family, school, and neighborhood and how he maintains to occupy the middle ground, using it to his advantage. Not having his biological father around Kyree spends time pulling pieces from different people, a friend's dad, a coach, or a teacher, and learning from them as he shapes his personality. He talks about the future version of himself and how to achieve it with his goals.  [09:21 - 21:44] Reflections through memories Kyree explains how he looks he sees his reflection in the mirror and remembers everything from his past that he had to endure. Doing “the work” Kyree decides to push further in becoming a better version of himself. Reaching his goals, he realizes it doesn't stop there, for every milestone comes with new sets of goals for Kyree. He focuses now on his coaching job making sure that his clients stay away from the gutter. How he makes his client realize about working hard and earning more yet looking for happiness in the wrong places.  [21:45 - 20:02] Closing Segment   Reach Kyree through Facebook and Instagram or visit www.kyree.com Thanks for tuning in!   If you liked my show, please LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW, like, and subscribe!   Find me on the following streaming platforms: Apple Spotify Google Podcasts IHeart Radio Stitcher Tweetable Quotes    “It's not money that you're thinking about when you're lying in bed at night. It sounds good to talk on social media. But there's a reason I don't talk about that super often, because I know that's not really what people want at the end of the day.”   Kyree Oliver

We may not be able to change our external circumstances like the pandemic or a monotonous schedule, but we can change how we choose to face challenging situations.You can find “The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved” by Matthew Kelly here..

Why being yourself is a bad idea & other counter cultural notions…. What other podcast do  you get to listen to a  Bishop talking about counter cultural ideas on IDENTITY, LOVE ❤️ & FREEDOM ✊?!?  Do you think  we are more like onions or artichokes!?  Email: feedbacktabletalk@gmail.com  LINK TO BUY BISHOP GRAHAM'S BOOK

It's way past time for an intro about the fat representation in Harry Potter! Abby discusses the good, bad, and ugly fat characters from the series, including Dudley Dursley, Hagrid, Molly Weasley, and more. Then she is joined by voice actor Maria Pendolino for a chat about the dEliA's catalogue, the freedom of voiceover, whether or not to eat the chips on the plane, wedding dress shopping, fit modeling, voicing diet ads, and refusing to watch This Is Us.SUBMIT A DATING QUESTION HERE - email morethantracyturnblad@gmail.com or DM us on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok! Maria's website: https://www.voicebymaria.com/Maria's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariapendo/?hl=enMaria's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mariapendo?s=20Plus Size Bridal Salons (LA): https://www.dellacurva.com/ https://strutbridalsalon.com/Rachel Wiley Poem "10 Honest Thoughts on Being Loved by a Skinny Boy":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFOTqTicvYAbby's web site: http://abbyrosemorris.comAbby's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbyrosemorrisAbby's Twitter: https://twitter.com/abbyrosemorris_http://www.morethantracyturnblad.comFollow @morethantracyt on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok!Logo design by Abby MartinoAssistant Producer: Maya Ballester

The resource Light in the Darkness: A Hymn Journal for Advent & Christmas explores twelve different Christmas carols and original songs composed, arranged, and recorded by singer/songwriter Brooke Orozco and musician Brendan Knorp. Brooke and Brendan join author Justin Rossow for the final episode of this season of the Next Step Podcast that has been focused on their music and the hymn journal. After a brief introduction and an opening prayer, you'll hear Brendan read Matthew 4 and Brooke read select verses of Psalm 119 (both on page 117 of the hymn journal). As part of the following discussion, Justin will read the devotion on the next page, titled, "He Comes to Light the Way." After we listen to Light in the Darkness, the title track for both the Christmas album and the hymn journal, we'll hear more about the composition of that song and gain some insight on the rest of that album from the recording artists themselves. As part of the discussion of the recording process, Brooke mentions one of her favorite songs on the album is an arrangement of German carol that wasn't included in this hymn journal: Waerst Du Kindchen. Brendan especially appreciates their setting of O Come, O Come Emmanuel, a song titled Emmanuel on their CD. Brendan talked about that song and its arrangement in the podcast recorded to go with Chapter 3 of the hymn journal: The Next Step Podcast, Season 3, Episode 3. The entire A Light in the Darkness Christmas album from Brooke and Brendan is available on your favorite streaming services as well as on YouTube. As part of the discussion, Brooke mentions the book Delight!: Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved, and Justin talks about how J.S. Bach would begin his compositions with the the Latin abbreviation J.J. (to find out more, read the article "Jesus, Judge Me!") At the close of this season of the Next Step Podcast, we want to thank all of our Next Step Patrons. Their regular support helps make this next step discipleship content possible. Thank you, Patrons! Whether you choose monthly support, an annual contribution, or a one-time gift, please consider becoming a Next Step Patron in 2022. To see different options for support visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep, or email justin@findmynextstep.org to make a one-time gift. Patrons make it possible. The intro and outro music for Season 3: Light in the Darkness was arranged and performed by Brendan Knorp. The music included in the podcast was written and performed by Brooke and Brendan. All rights reserved. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

(December 25, 2021)  Father Samuel Dubois, Parochial Vicar of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, shared with us what stands at the heart of Christmas: love."Being loved is the beauty of Christmas: it awakens in our hearts a simplicity of life. All God needs from us is not our stuff or accomplishments, but our love. Let us, then, open our hearts to the love of God: return that love to Him and give Him thanks for the joys and blessings that we share. Our God could rule with power and might, but He prefers to rule by a simple invitation of love. Let us, then, pray for each other that we may know the love of Jesus Christ – the simple love of a child," Father Dubois concluded. 

In this Podcast Heather Jean is joined by the inspiring therapist and coach, Lindsey Peterson of The Responsive Woman Lindsey teaches women HOW to stop surviving day to day so that they can feel calm, confident, & connected in themselves, & connected to their loved ones In this packed episode Heather Jean and Lindsey are talking about... ... Getting Beyond Stuck ... Moving from Survival to Being Loved and Connected to taking hold of life and Learning and Growing ...Calming techniques to move through Anxiety, Grieving and getting out of Survival mode ...Empathy ... Connecting with Yourself ...Prioritising the Roles in Your Life Lindsey shares her work, her story and lessons along the journey... and SO much more!   Don't Miss This Episode!    Connect with Confidence Through Cabaret ... http://beatyourimpostor.com/webinar  - FREE webinar to help you overcome Impostor Voice Link tree https://yourbodyyourworldyourstage.world/linktree/ Website: https://confidencethroughcabaret.com/ Podcast:  Https://confidencethroughcabaret.podbean.com  or search Confidence Through Cabaret wherever you get podcasts Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groupsconfidencethroughcabaretcommunity/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Confidence-Through-Cabaret-109927597531068/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/confidencethroughcabaret YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkJiPVgL6woSAQ1Wpa4K68w/videos Blog https://confidencethroughcabaret.com/ Twitter: @YBYWYS Clubhouse https://clubber.one/@heatherybywys  OR Clubhouse @HeatherYBYWYS Clubhouse Club -Confidence & Attitudes https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/confidence-attitudes   

This episode of the Next Step Podcast kicks off year two of the Light in the Darkness social learning group on Facebook. Join us at https://www.facebook.com/groups/AdventHymnJournal. Host Justin Rossow talks to Valerie Matyas and Alli Bauck, both of whom are familiar with the practice of calendaring your faith. While they take a closer look at the 12 Days of Christmas calendar on page 123 of the resource Light in the Darkness: A Hymn Journal for Advent & Christmas, the conversation could also apply to the Advent calendar on page vii, or to any calendar you use to capture what Jesus has been speaking into your life. You can read more from Alli in Be Still and Notice: Tales from the Next Step Community, Year 2 or hear more from Valerie about the Advent calendar in last year's intro podcast, "Introducing Light in the Darkness." As part of the conversations, you will hear these friends mention The Movable Adventure, an online formation experience from Visual Faith™ Ministry; Justin, Alli, and Valerie all contributed to that online resource. You might hear Justin make a passing reference to everyday faith conversations with his daughter on the way to school or in a PT session; you can read more about those everyday discipleship experiences in these two blog posts: The Christ in the Mouth of My Brother or Sister and Small Conversations. You'll also hear Justin try to quote from Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved. The real quote comes from page 236 and goes like this: "I bet you already knew God's Word takes work to understand. But I hope that you are beginning to imagine another truth: God's Word also takes play to understand." This episode of the Next Step Podcast was supported in part by the generosity of Next Step Patrons. Special thanks to Janice, our newest Next Step Patron. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep, or email justin@findmynextstep.org to make a one-time gift. Patrons make it possible. The intro and outro music for Season 3: Light in the Darkness was arranged and performed by Brendan Knorp. The music included in the podcast was written and performed by Brooke and Brendan. All rights reserved. The A Light in the Darkness CD from Brooke and Brendan is now available on your favorite streaming services as well as on YouTube. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Hey lovelies, today we are talking healing in relationships, self-love, vulnerability and mistakes. It takes courage to be loved and to love, to heal, to open up your heart, to forgive and to trust. This is a deep dive into relationship entitlement and healthy relationships as portals for healing. Things mentioned in this episode:My membership, The More Membership: https://kirstydee.com/product/the-more-membership-3-months/Soul Psychic Sessions: https://kirstydee.com/product/soul-psychic-session/Go all-in with Awakening Package: https://kirstydee.com/product/16178/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirstydeeshares/Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/woowisewomenTHE SELF-LOVE NO BS PODCAST WITH KIRSTY DEE An unpolished raw podcast about unearthing the crap that holds us back. Aimed at women who want it all and wanna feel damn good about themselves. We will talk openly about struggles, the highs and lows of life, sex, family, relationships, emotions, healing, mindset, dreams, spirituality, vulnerability, money, bisexuality and so much more - in fact, nothing is really off the table. If it's holding you back from the life you want we will talk about it. If you wanna feel damn good we need to talk about the real stuff so that's what we are doing here. I believe when we love ourselves our life really transforms in the most beautiful ways and when we don't love ourselves we don't feel enough or fulfilled. This is a podcast to bridge the gap. It's a podcast about feeling good about you, living life in your truth, on your terms.Support the show (https://kirstydee.com/product/the-more-membership-3-months/)

Episode 58. Being Loved & Appreciated For Who You Are - Today's solo episode is going to be dedicated to one of the topics that have most profoundly changed my life! I've been in this field for quite some time and I've been very passionate about helping women see and do things differently. Recently, as I was teaching my masterclass, How to Get Back in Control of Your Weight After 40, and one of the things my audience said really resonated with me; how refreshing my perspective was! There is so much of the same old information out there when it comes to weight loss and what I teach is a very unique and different approach. That served as inspiration to bring you this episode so I can share this big point of difference. I'm going to tell you exactly my approach, and how I apply it to weight loss , but also knowing that you can actually use the same methodology, this mindset methodology in our areas of life. Learn more and get show notes and transcripts by visiting www.confidencefromwithin.caListen now to learn… What are inner priorities and why it is so important for you to be able to identify what they areHow you can use mindset in your weight loss journey, and how weight loss can actually help you become authentic and tap into self mastery.Why you shouldn't have to rely on willpower if you want to lose weight, and what you should do instead!Resources to get you started:STOP SELF-SABOTAGING YOUR WEIGHT LOSS = naturallyjoyous.ca/freetrainingWORK WITH ME - BOOK YOUR COMPLIMENTARY MEET & GREET CALL = http://naturallyjoyous.ca/callIf you enjoyed today's episode, please:Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your Instagram story and tag me @naturally.joyous so I can repost you Leave us a positive review on Apple Podcasts, HERE is howSubscribe to the Confidence From Within Podcast, we release new episodes every Friday! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

S2E2 "The Art of Being Loved" by Art of The Funny Girl

Do you know your own love language? Have you ever tried to teach a partner how to love you in a specific way? In this week's episode, we're joined by recording artist A.Z.I to discuss our "love language" based on Gary Chapman's 1992 book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. We all share our thoughts on how love languages have changed our views on relationships and dating. Join the conversation by using #gooduptuesday on social media or tagging @gooduppod.Support the show (http://www.patreon.com/gooduppodcast)

In this episode of the Next Step Podcast, musician Brendan Knorp and Visual Faith™ Ministry Artist Ann Gillaspie join author Justin Rossow to talk about the text, the music, and the art in Chapter 3: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel from the resource Light in the Darkness: A Hymn Journal for Advent & Christmas. Before this episode gets quite off the ground, Justin gets to ask Brendan about the origins of the A Light in the Darkness CD, now available on your favorite streaming services as well as on YouTube. It turns out, Brooke and Brendan have been making Advent music together for years! As part of that introduction, you'll also hear Brendan talk about his role in formatting the hymn and songs for the Hymn Journal series from Next Step Press and how meaningful it was to see his work on music layout become the backdrop for artwork in our online community. After that opening discussion, Justin will pray and Brendan will read the Zephaniah 3 passage on page 25 of the hymn journal. Zephaniah 3 is a key verse for Chapter 7 of the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. You can hear the author read that chapter, titled "He Will Rejoice Over You With Singing," beginning with the podcast Songs of Belonging. Ann, Brendan, and Justin will highlight some of their take-aways from that Zephaniah 3 reading before Justin turns the page to the devotion, titled "Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel." After we listen to the first two verses of the song "Emmanuel" from Brooke and Brendan, Justin gets to ask some more specific questions about the development of this song and it's unique guitar accompaniment. Brendan mentions the unique guitar tuning required by the piece (available here for those interested) and talks a little but about how the song evolved over the years, mentioning a recent video of Emmanuel. After we hear the last verse of the song, Justin and Ann explore about the O Antiphon Bible Margins project starting on page 29 of the hymn journal. This isn't the first time Ann has brought her gift for Bible Margins to a hymn journal. You can read more about how you might use or adapt this faith practice in Ann's blog, "Bible Margin Art: Comfort in the Midst of Crisis." To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. Patrons make it possible. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

In this episode of the Next Step Podcast, singer/songwriter Brooke Orozco and Visual Faith™ Ministry Artist Katie Helmreich join author Justin Rossow to talk about the text, the music, and the art in Chapter 1: To Us from the resource Light in the Darkness: A Hymn Journal for Advent & Christmas. After a brief introduction, Justin will pray and Katie and Brooke will read the Isaiah 9 passage on page 5 of the book. After discussing those verses, Justin will read the devotion on page 6, and we'll hear the first two verses of the song "To Us" performed by Brooke Orozco and Brendan Knorp. Brooke will then talk a little bit about the song and the process that moved from the biblical text to the song lyrics. We'll listen to the rest of the song before talking to Katie Helmreich about her illustrations on page 9 and the process that led her from the biblical text to the art on page 3. Along the way, the guests talk about the Jesse Tree project from Visual Faith™ Ministry. You can download that resource here or watch an interview with Katie and Valerie Matyas, two of our Ponder Anew illustrators who created the Jesse Tree project. They also mention the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved. The song "To Us" is part of the album A Light in the Darkness available on your favorite streaming services as well as on YouTube. Before the podcast ends, you will hear our guest consider what next step Jesus is inviting them to take as they walk toward the Nativity of Our Lord. This podcast is designed especially to go with the Light in the Darkness Facebook learning community sponsored by Next Step Press. Join us at https://www.facebook.com/groups/AdventHymnJournal. Getting ready for Christmas and the New Year is a great time for you to make a commitment to the mission of resourcing next step discipleship. Please consider becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. Patrons make it possible. The intro and outro music for Season 3: Light in the Darkness was arranged and performed by Brendan Knorp. The music included in the podcast was written by Brooke Orozco and performed by Brooke and Brendan. All rights reserved. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Episode 24, Season 4 of the Next Step podcast covers the rest of the last chapter, "Living With Delight" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. How do you take a small next step in the right direction when you live in a performance-driven culture? How do you trad in your Spiritual GPA for a Spiritual GPS? Thanks so much for taking this journey of discovery with us. Please share your best words of insight, encouragement, or advice: https://www.videoask.com/fc14pikzh. You can see all of the readings from Delight! on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. If you already have a copy of the book and would like to add a five star rating or add your own review, you can go directly to Amazon's review page for Delight! You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. The newest addition to the Next Step Press suite of resource, Light in the Darkness, has become the #1 New Release in the Amazon category of Christian Hymns and Hymnals. Discover more at the Light in the Darkness page. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Episode 23, Season 4 of the Next Step podcast covers the first half of the last chapter, "Living With Delight" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. Delight is one of the most vulnerable emotions; and vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, belonging, and delight. How do you live with the healthy vulnerability that leads to a faith life characterized by delight? You can see all of the readings from Delight! on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. If you already have a copy of the book and would like to add a five star rating or add your own review, you can go directly to Amazon's review page for Delight! You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. The newest addition to the Next Step Press suite of resource, Light in the Darkness, has become the #1 New Release in the Amazon category of Christian Hymns and Hymnals. Discover more at the Light in the Darkness page. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Sense of worth = an internal awareness that as created creatures of God we have value How does God’s delight in us inform our sense of worth? Concept of mutual delight, God to us and us to God   Struggle with worth - Delight is not determined by what I do. Seeing our worth based on our relationships with people Worth based on what we do or my performance   Engaging in God out of response playing from delight v playing for it what is our vantage point of God? Father of Love v. Father of Judgement   Our worth within the narrative of God’s plan: Creation to New Creation   Holding the tensions of life together to see God’s delight is still with us in difficult things: repentance and delight the now and not yet   Justin’s book – Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved: https://amzn.to/2HDOzxm* *this is an affiliate link

We all know the most famous verse of Psalm 119: "Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." But have you ever stopped to consider what that kind of light would have meant for the average person at the time of King David? Or what God might intend for us to mean by that prayer of faith? Author Justin Rossow reads the third part of Chapter 11 from the book Delight! Discipleship As The Adventure Of Loving and Being Loved. Get a copy of the Delight! book for yourself or a friend (and support Next Step Press by using this promotional link): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Support a Next Step by becoming a Patron. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. The newest hymn journal from Next Step Press is now available: https://community.findmynextstep.org/l…/ Make sure you also join the Facebook group, and invite a friend! https://www.facebook.com/groups/AdventHymnJournal Join us on Facebook Live weeknights at 7PM EST! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Season 4, Episode 21 of the Next Step podcast continues Chapter 11, God's Word Propels Your Adventure from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. God's Word takes work to understand; but God's Word also take play to understand! Based on passages in Psalm 119 and Isaiah 55, we take a playful look at God's incredible Word. You can see daily readings from Delight! weekdays at 7PM EST on Facebook Live or watch a recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. If you already have a copy of the book and would like to add a five star rating or add your own review, you can go directly to Amazon's review page for Delight! You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. The newest addition to the Next Step Press suite of resource, Light in the Darkness, has become the #1 New Release in the Amazon category of Christian Hymns and Hymnals. Discover more at the Light in the Darkness page. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

The Bible itself talks about itself in delightful terms: God's Word is a Delicious Delight that sustains us on our journey of faith. Author Justin Rossow reads the rest of Chapter 11 of the book Delight! Discipleship As The Adventure Of Loving and Being Loved. Get a copy of the Delight! book for yourself or a friend (and support Next Step Press by using this promotional link): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Support a Next Step by becoming a Patron. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. The newest hymn journal from Next Step Press is now available: https://community.findmynextstep.org/l…/ Make sure you also join the Facebook group, and invite a friend! https://www.facebook.com/groups/AdventHymnJournal Join us on Facebook Live weeknights at 7PM EST! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

God delights in your complete dependence; and God delights in your complete engagement. God delights in your work, but also in your rest and your play! Author Justin Rossow reads the rest of Chapter 10 of the book Delight! Discipleship As The Adventure Of Loving and Being Loved. Get a copy of the Delight! book for yourself or a friend (and support Next Step Press by using this promotional link): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Support a Next Step by becoming a Patron. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. The newest hymn journal from Next Step Press just launched today! https://community.findmynextstep.org/l…/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

God delights in your complete dependence; and God delights in your complete engagement. God delights in your work, but also in your rest and your play! Author Justin Rossow reads from Chapter 10 of the book Delight! Discipleship As The Adventure Of Loving and Being Loved. Get a copy of the Delight! book for yourself or a friend (and support Next Step Press by using this promotional link): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Support a Next Step by becoming a Patron. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. The newest hymn journal from Next Step Press just launched today! https://community.findmynextstep.org/l…/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

God delights in your complete dependence; and God delights in your complete engagement. You aren't in control of your adventure of following Jesus, but you do get to be actively involved. In Season 4, Episode 17, author Justin Rossow reads from Chapter 10 of the book Delight! Discipleship As The Adventure Of Loving and Being Loved. Get a copy of the Delight! book for yourself or a friend (and support Next Step Press by using this promotional link): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Support a Next Step by becoming a Patron. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. Happy Reformation! Check out this video short from Next Step Press: https://youtu.be/z6GcT57ioA4 Author Ben Miller was mentioned in todays live reading; you can find his books on amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Be…/e/B00Q9SZYCG… Join us weeknights at 7PM EST! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Episode 16 of the Next Step Podcast Season 4 features a reading of the first part of Chapter 10 "God's Work Shapes Your Adventure" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. Weekday readings typically go live at 7PM EST on Facebook. You can find recordings of the live video on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. If you already have a copy of the book and would like to add a five star rating or add your own review, you can go directly to Amazon's review page for Delight! You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. To watch the streaming performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream on Oct 30 or 31, 2020 at 7PM EST, visit: https://www.cuaa.edu/stream/theater.html --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Discipleship is an adventure. And God's will directs your journey of faith. How do you rejoice in the midst of suffering? What does it mean to pray for God's Will to be done, if God's will is directly related to God's Delight? What would the Lord's Prayer look like if we prayed, "Your Kingdom, come; your DELIGHT be done, on earth as it is in heaven"? Author Justin Rossow finishes Chapter 9 of the book Delight! Discipleship As The Adventure Of Loving and Being Loved. Get a copy for yourself or a friend (and support Next Step Press by using this promotional link): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Support a Next Step by becoming a Patron. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. Share this link on your social media or email to a friend: https://community.findmynextstep.org/delight-by-justin-rossow/ Join us weeknights at 7PM EST! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Discipleship is an adventure. And God's will directs your journey of faith. Jesus knows both suffering and obedience. And so do you. How does that jive with God's Good Pleasure? How do you rejoice in the midst of suffering? What does it mean to pray for God's Will to be done, if God's will is directly related to God's Delight? Author Justin Rossow reads from Chapter 9 of the book Delight! Discipleship As The Adventure Of Loving and Being Loved. Get a copy for yourself or a friend (and support Next Step Press by using this promotional link): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Support a Next Step by becoming a Patron. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. Join us weeknights on Facebook Live at 7PM EST! See Less --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Season 4, Episode 13 of the Next Step podcast continues Chapter 9, God's Will Directs Your Adventure in the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. God's will is focused on Jesus, but Jesus still know both suffering and obedience. And so do you. How does that jive with God's Good Pleasure? You can see daily readings from Delight! weekdays at 7PM EST on Facebook Live or watch a recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. If you already have a copy of the book and would like to add a five star rating or add your own review, you can go directly to Amazon's review page for Delight! You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Season 4, Episode 12 of the Next Step podcast begins the third section of the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow with a reading from chapter 9, God's Will Directs Your Adventure. You can see daily readings from Delight! weekdays at 7PM EST on Facebook Live or watch a recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. If you already have a copy of the book and would like to add a five star rating or add your own review, you can go directly to Amazon's review page for Delight! You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading from the last part of chapter 8 "I Am My Beloved's And My Beloved Is Mine" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. For the rest of this series, the readings will air weekdays at 7PM EST on Facebook Live so that you can hear Andrew Peterson read from his Wingfeather Saga at 8PM EST at https://www.facebook.com/andrewpetersonmusic/. You can see daily readings from Delight! weekdays at 7PM EST on Facebook Live or watch a recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. If you already have a copy of the book and would like to add a five star rating or add your own review, you can go directly to Amazon's review page for Delight! You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading from the middle of chapter 8 "I Am My Beloved's And My Beloved Is Mine" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. If you already have a copy of the book and would like to add a five star rating or add your own review, you can go directly to Amazon's review page for Delight! For the rest of this series, the readings will air weekdays at 7PM EST on Facebook Live so that you can hear Andrew Peterson read from his Wingfeather Saga at 8PM EST at https://www.facebook.com/andrewpetersonmusic/. You can see daily readings from Delight! on Facebook Live or a recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading of the first half of chapter 8 "I Am My Beloved's And My Beloved Is Mine" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. For the rest of this series, the readings will air weekdays at 7PM EST on Facebook Live so that you can hear Andrew Peterson read from his Wingfeather Saga at 8PM EST at https://www.facebook.com/andrewpetersonmusic/. You can see daily readings from Delight! on Facebook Live or a recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. Support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading of the second half of chapter 7 "He Will Rejoice Over You With Singing" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. You can see daily readings from Delight! Monday through Thursday at 8PM EST on Facebook Live or recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Try saying, "Alexa! Play the podcast Find My Next Step!" You can support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading of the first half of chapter 7 "He Will Rejoice Over You With Singing" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. You can see daily readings from Delight! weeknights at 8PM EST on Facebook Live or recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Try saying, "Alexa! Play the podcast Find My Next Step!" You can support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading of the second half of chapter 6 "Treasured Possession" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. You can see daily readings from Delight! weeknights at 8PM EST on Facebook Live or recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. Try saying, "Alexa! Play the podcast Find My Next Step!" You can support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading from chapter 6 "Treasured Possession" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. You can see daily readings from Delight! weeknights at 8PM EST on Facebook Live or recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. You can support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Season 4, Episode 4 of the Next Step podcast features a reading of chapter 5 "Desirable Delight" from the book Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. You can find other books by author Justin Rossow at his Amazon author's page. You can see daily readings from Delight! weeknights at 8PM EST on Facebook Live or recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. You can support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading of chapter 4 of Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. Try saying, "Alexa, play the podcast Find My Next Step!" The author is reading from Delight! weeknights at 8PM EST on Facebook Live. You can see daily recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. You can support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading of chapters 2 and 3 of Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. The author is reading from Delight! weeknights at 8PM EST on Facebook Live. You can see daily recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. You can support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

This episode of the Next Step podcast features a reading of the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. The author is reading from Delight! weeknights at 8PM EST on Facebook Live. You can see daily recording on the Next Step Community Facebook page. Find out more about the book or get a copy for yourself or for a friend (use this link to support Next Step Press): https://amzn.to/2ZuVC1E. You can support the mission of resourcing next step discipleship by becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join The Next Step Community Facebook group and share your experience with the Delight! book. We'd love to hear from you at Next Step Press. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

How to Move from Being Loved to Becoming Love.

If you’re not feeling loved by someone you love, take courage in the story of Leah in Genesis. Jacob, Leah’s husband, did not love her. In fact, what’s even worse, he loved her sister, Rachel, instead. Leah named her first three sons out of her hope and desire for her husband to love her, thinking if she bore him sons he would love him. She named her first “Reuben” which means, “Look, a son,” saying, “Now my husband will love me.” She named her second son “Simeon” which means “listening” because she felt the Lord heard her prayer for Jacob to love her. She named her third son “Levi” which means “joined together” because she believed this time her husband will finally be joined to her. By the time she had her fourth son, she named him Judah, which means “may God be praised.” She finally stopped trying to make Jacob love her, and instead she let go and let God take over. It’s no coincidence that Jesus would be born from the line of Judah. Some people love people the way they know how to love, and the beloved just doesn’t notice. A father may love her daughter through acts of service rather than words of affirmation or quality time. Others may simply not love you, but that does not mean you’re unlovable. You’re chosen by God for a reason only you can know. Do not wait for someone else to give you the love that God the Father has already given you.

Season 2 of the Next Step Podcast focuses on the resource, Ponder Anew: A Hymn Journal of Trust and Confidence, brought to you by Next Step Press. Episode 9 focuses on the hymn,"Come Unto Me, Ye Weary" and the Scripture, devotion, and faith experiment beginning on page 83. Leo Sánchez, Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary—St. Louis, will open us with prayer and then share the readings on page 87 with author Justin Rossow. A conversation of Jesus asleep in the storm will lead directly into the devotion on page 88. In the course of the conversation, you will hear Leo and Justin discuss "rest" in two senses: (1) literal sleep as an act of trust and (2) the spiritual rest of hearing the Word and addressing the Lord in prayer. You can see both kinds of rest in the life of Jesus. Jesus doesn't live up to my standard of being busy all the time; instead Jesus finds time for work, rest, and delight in the Spirit. Leo talks about these three areas of our Christian life as the Garden (where we labor), the Mountain (where we receive from God and worship), and the Playground (where we experience delight in God's creation). Human beings were created in God's image, and we image God not only as stewards of the earth, and so in our labor, but we also image God as people who delight in the creation. All that talk of "delight" points back to the introduction of Ponder Anew, where we talked about the Hebrew word for playful delight: Sha-ah! You can hear Justin's conversation with Lead Illustrator Valerie Matyas about sha'a' in the first episode of this season of the Next Step Podcast, and you can hear author Justin Rossow read from his forthcoming book, Delight!--Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved in the special bonus episode 3B: Joyful Delight. Dr. Sanchez was also our guest for Season 1, Episode 5 of the podcast: Go to Dark Gethsemane. Leo talks more about rest, work, and play in chapter 7 on the Devotional Model in his book Sculptor Spirit: Models of Sanctification from Spirit Christology. This recording was made possible in part by the generous support of Next Step Patrons. Today we recognize Jon and Ken for their ongoing support of our mission and ministry. Thank you, Ken and Jon, for helping us equip others for their next step following Jesus! If now is the right time for you to make a commitment to the mission of resourcing next step discipleship, please consider becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep. We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join the Facebook Pop Up Group sharing this hymn journal experience here: The Ponder Anew Facebook Group. The intro and outro music for Season 2: Ponder Anew was arranged and performed by Brendan Knorp. All rights reserved. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

Season 2 of the Next Step Podcast focuses on the resource, Ponder Anew: A Hymn Journal of Trust and Confidence, brought to you by Next Step Press. Episode 3 should be on the hymn, "Great is Thy Faithfulness." But, as author Justin Rossow explains, the right person for the interview won't be available until late August. Instead of just skipping a week, we are adding a bonus episode: Episode 3B, "Joyful Delight." You'll hear the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Delight!--Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved read by the author. That book is scheduled to be published by Next Step Press this fall. The introduction of Ponder Anew drew from the Delight! book in the section on Sha-AH!, a Hebrew word that can mean sport or play, but also gets used to talk about our Playful Delight in God's Word. You may have also read part of the book in the blog, The Adventure of Discipleship. If you enjoyed that blog or the Sha'a' section of Ponder Anew, or if you are intrigued by this reading of Delight!, make sure you join the Next Step Press email list to stay informed of new publications. We'll be sure to let you know when Delight! is available. This recording was originally shared with Next Step Patrons as a way of keeping them informed and up to date on the vision and ministry of Next Step Press. Their generous support makes these podcasts possible. If you would like to support a next step and receive regular updates and unique, behind-the-scenes content, become a Next Step Patron today. All Next Step Patrons who join before July 25 will be personally recognized duriong Season 2 of the Next Step Podcast. Today we welcome Debi and Judy, who joined the Next Step team this last week. Thank you, Debi and Judy, for helping us equip others for their next step following Jesus! We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join the Facebook Pop Up Group sharing this hymn journal experience here: The Ponder Anew Facebook Group. The intro and outro music for Season 2: Ponder Anew was arranged and performed by Brendan Knorp. All rights reserved. Next Step Press. We help you take a next step. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynextstep/message

EPISODE # 8 ...Coach Bill CurryToday’s guest is legendary player, coach, and leader Bill Curry. If you don’t have something to write with or on now stop the podcast and take care of that because this one is special! Josh and I had the honor of listening and learning from Coach Curry who was so very generous with his time. A member of the legendary Green Bay Packers coached by Vince Lombardi and the Baltimore Colts coached by Don Shula. Coach Curry then went on to be the Head Football Coach at Ga. Tech, Kentucky, Alabama and Ga. State. An ACC Coach of the Year and 2x SEC Coach of the year. Coach Curry has been named the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year and in 2007 was recognized as the Amos Alonzo Stagg Award winner. Get ready to be inspired, challenged, and moved as we settle in and get to know Coach Bill Curry. 1:21- Introduction4:04- Coach Curry’s High School Days6:29- The ‘Straightforward, Honest’ Coach7:52- Investing in the Younger Generation… ‘Magnanimitas’-Greatness of Spirit10:45- Being Loved & Coached by Coach Bobby Dodd14:18- Working for a great Athletic Administrator, Dr. Homer Rice17:56- Who Equipped Bill Curry for a Lifetime of Success21:18- Teaching Teams to Work Together as ‘Brothers and Sisters’ (Andrew Young)25:00- Importance of Reading, Prioritizing Your Life while Coaching27:39- Where did Coach Curry find Advice & Answers to his Players Issues31:30- Taking Personal Responsibility for Societal Issues34:59- Being Proud of a Full Resume after a Life in Coaching37:07- 2 Minute Drill43:51- “The Huddle” …written & narrated by Coach Bill CurryYou can follow Coach Bill Curry on Twitter @CoachBillCurryAbout Hangin With The AD Podcast….Hangin with the AD is an interview style podcast where Don Baker, Cobb County School District Director of Athletics, partners with Josh Mathews, Pope High School (GA) Athletic Director, to discuss hot topics and lessons learned with leaders in the world of athletics. These leaders include high school athletic directors at the district and local school levels; college athletic administrators; leaders in spaces that connect to athletics such as nutrition, wellness, recruiting, student-athlete recognition; current and former athletes; and others, who can help athletic administrators develop themselves and their programs for a better daily experience for their athletic communities. Don Baker.... Director of Athletics for the Cobb County School District in Georgia. @CCSD_AD (twitter & instagram)Josh Mathews...Athletics Director at Pope High School in Marietta, GA. @mathews14 (twitter) @jwmathews14 (instagram)

Episode 15 - Looking Like and Being Loved by Jesus with Donny Wadley by Messages from FC | Worship Gatherings

:31 When you can't go outside you might as well go within.1:10 Krista on vacation for the Covid 19 experience ~ pre USM she would be in complete terror. Now she is not going to the dark places she would have gone to before.1:50 Katherine explores the wide variety of experiences that everyone is having. Honoring experiences of stuckness … In the past, Krista might have been fixating on things she couldn't change.4:12 We never know what is really good for us.. Krista was previously upset about her house not selling but is now finding the gift in it.4:44 Honor all experiences of what we each have to do. All those who are out in the world and have to continue to work through this. Everyone is challenged..5:56 Being at peace about things we cannot control is helping the Gals navigate this time.6:43 compassion for everyone…6:57 Safety on everyone's mind.7:24 do you feel loved by words or by actions?8:24 Krista is “embracing the Gift” of Mr. Right Here Right Now being forced to stay in the states, solidifying their connection before he goes.11:49 What is the gift that Golden Eyes gives Krista that makes this time even more special?14:31 Healing that was happening with Mr. Right Here Right Now, is slightly irritating to Golden Eyes15:00 Transformation of relationship from romantic to friendship. Not abandoning each other is better than having to choose.16:00 Being Loved by Golden Eyes? What does that mean? How can we see that? Why is that safe now?17:00 Krista's body signals that she is safe/not safe. How does that show up?19:00 Krista gets her two men differently than she ever imagined before…19:40 The subtle signs of safety/not safety start showing up with these two men. What creates that?21:00 What times have been totally unsafe with Mr. Delicious … or totally safe full body experience of calm and loving …22:57: Women can't feel loved until they feel safe ~ Alison Armstrong24:00 What does Mr. Right Here Right Now drop into Krista's world, as a big surprise?26:00 Safer to let him step more fully in first.27:00 What is it that is making Krista start feeling like she can fall in Love? Even without the container “words”.29:00 Highest values for women and men: freedom and safety- how do they interact to create love?30:00 Katherine explores that she had to feel safe to explore engagement to Mr. Delicious. Safety first, then love, then engagement.31:00 Choice is safety too.32:30 What does Krista learn about the 70% that was good in her marriage.33:13 Katherine shares about what is possible if we truly step into partnership, we can transition the form of our partnership into anything.34:08 Why did Krista have to be the ‘bad person' in her marriage?36:00 Katherine asks “Is love big enough to hold a variety of containers? Can we make it safe enough? How does the Truth bring love forward, no matter what the truth is?”38:00 Congruence between words and actions, you will feel safe. Those are the signs that things are good.39:00 What if you do know if you are safe and loved?39:20 Krista has an Ahah moment! What has changed the most?39:40 When will Krista fully be able feel and say what she really wants?41:40 When Krista holds herself accountable for what she wants, changes some things she is up to, and gets more honest… that's when the safety really starts to unfold.42:00 What is the big surprise for Krista when she gets more focused on what she wants?What does it take to feel safe? What does it take? Honor yourself…Spread the love.

In this episode, your host Zach Beach interviews coach, speaker and author Mai Vu on Being Loved, Adored, and Cherished. Learn more about your host at: www.zachbeach.com www.the-heart-center.com Learn more about your guest at: Website: Www.maivucoach.com Instagram: Boldbravewomen Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/learntolovenow Join the Community group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1428012130828678/

'Sports In Depth' With,Dr.M.Lee''Doc'' Stanley Sr.,and his sports posse, is an in depth informative educational and historical look at the world of sports,on his renowned and legendary award winning,radio show,'Sports In Depth'. Di-versing from both a daily and historical perspective,bringing also both an in depth look and perspective not only on the sports of our times, but too,of the players and performers of the said events, both now and of yesteryear. 'Sports In Depth',AKA SID, also brings us the unique strategies of sports from an intellectual prospective. Not just athletics because as it takes raw GOD given talent and conditioning it too takes a blessed mind fueled with passion, determination,intellect and a belief of competing and accomplishing too. And with the in depth knowledge and diverse intellect, of Doc's iconic posse,'Sports In Depth' is too,''the world in Depth''.  The Sports In Depth Nation and crew sends our prayers and sympathy to the family of music legend,Kenny Rogers.Both one of our favorite singers and people. Thanks for joining us once again,where we always,''Rope the Rumors,Hog tie the Issues and Brand the Truth.'' *TRUST*IN*GOD* ''Being in Love and Being Loved often are not one and the same but so very wonderful when it is.'' ''In Life you find that you have or had very few or no real friends because they weren't real ones or that you weren't a real one .'' ''Doing your best is not always the best thing to do.'' ''Of all of yours friends to yourself you should be the very best.''   'Doc Stanley's Words Of WIt,Wisdom and Truth AKA Julius LugWegi's Words Of Wealth'

Loving and Being Loved, John 14:15

The Foundation of Faith is Being Loved by God, by Tim Thomas

Moe Bruce is passionate about investing in deep and meaningful connections and intimacy, engaging with others, building relationships, and being present in the moment. For 20 years, she has been a coach and consultant for CEOs and global leaders in large and small international organizations and has built profound connections with strangers throughout America and Europe. She’s always had a deep curiosity about how people live their lives as well as what she can learn from them. Moe joins me today to discuss how to take risks with strangers by going beyond the regular chitchat our society is so used to. We discuss the inspiring experiments she conducted throughout New York and Europe while building connections with strangers as well as how the workplace is hungry for vulnerability, transparency, and truth.  We discuss an observation she had about me and how my answer revealed something enlightening and personal as we experience the magic that comes from being open and present in the moment.   “If you want a connection, you can have it. If you’re willing to be vulnerable and revealing and curious, you can make it your world. You don’t have to suffer chitchat.” - Moe Bruce   This week on Relationships! Let’s Talk About It:   What Moe does while in contact with strangers. How her 3-phrase experiment in New York impacted her. The impact that her “Being Loved” experiment in Berlin had on her and the people around her. Why she doesn’t allow ‘chit chat’ in her conversations and connections with strangers. How she leads conversations with strangers to make them feel comfortable, connected, and open. How being open and willing to share things about yourself in conversations helps you build deep connections with others. What the Modality of Circling is. How to make the conversation “your world” as well. When it’s okay not to put limits on what to reveal and how to make distinctions about things to share. The effect of being vulnerable and having closer connections in the workplace. What the courage to be vulnerable requires. Strategies she used to connect with strangers in Atlanta during an experiment. The impact that beingpresent can have on those around you. How she makes a game out of connecting and communicating with others to relieve the pressure of “doing it right” or doing it a certain way. How building meaningful connections with strangers helps builds hope for humanity. How she discovered the Strategy of Circling. The backstory of circling and how to do it. How circling can help parents in their relationship with their children. How she felt reborn after a circling session. How her curiosity about my openness led us to the most transformational moment of my life   Sponsored by Still Point Wellness   StillPoint Wellness is Asheville’s premier spa experience. Enjoy effortless relaxation and rejuvenate your body through Still Point’s world-class services including Esalen Massage®, Salt Water Floatation also known as sensory deprivation, Cranial Sacral Therapy, and Somatic Psychology. Experience the healing powers of deep relaxation like never before!   Schedule your first appointment by visiting www.StillPointWell.comor call (828) 348-5372.   Mention the code:Pripoto receive 10% off your first Salt Water Floatation or Esalen Massage®!    Let’s Talk About It!   Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Relationships! Let’s Talk About It- the show to help you forge deeper, more meaningful connections and relationships with those around you. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show, and leave us a rating and review. Don’t forget to visit our website, join us on Facebook at HeartShare Counselingand Relationships! Let’s Talk About It, and follow us on Twitterand Instagram. Share your favorite episodes on social media to help others build better, more meaningful relationships.   Theme music “These Streets” provided by Adi the Monk   Relationships! Let’s Talk About It is produced by Podcraft. You can create your owngreatpodcast - faster and easier - at Podcraft.com

Loving and Being Loved   After watching the movie, "Wonder", your host continues an exploration of the basic question we each may face every day:  Is It All About Me?   If it is, what methods do I use and to what degree am I best able to coexist with others as I seek healthy ways to care about myself and others who are part of my world.   Exploration of self-concept is usually a crucial aspect of every personal retreating experience.   One of the critical questions frequently asked is what expectations do I carry into loving myself and others?   What expectations do I have for others on their ways to convey love to me?   How do I and another choose to confront and resolve the many differences that the process of loving and being loved can involve?

In which Basie and Joel discuss Lola Ridge's The Woman with Jewels, among other things. Thanks to Monroe County Public Library, where we recorded this podcast. The Woman With Jewels, in case you want to read it: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/woman-jewels Rachel Wiley's 10 Honest Thoughts on Being Loved by a Skinny Boy, in case you want to hear it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFOTqTicvY Meghan Whalen Turner's The Theif: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060824976/the-thief Please rate or like (you know, if you like it) this podcast, and subscribe if you never want to miss an episode. If you know someone who would like this podcast, please share it with them. Questions? Comments? Complaints? Email us at betweenoceansandgoldteeth@gmail.com This poem is in the public domain. This podcast does not turn a profit.

This week I'm talking about love in a way you've never heard before. First we'll explore how to be more lovable and more likable. Then we'll talk about how to love other people...yes...even the ones who seem unloveable. Even better, I'll explain to you WHY I highly recommend you allow yourself to feel love. You won't want to miss this one if you want to have more friends, and less angst around the people who challenge you. The post Ep 29. On Loving and Being Loved appeared first on Jody Moore.

Join us for this incredible Heart Challenging, yet Healing message by Sherry Cooksey as she shares her story of Being Lost to Being Loved!

The Contentment of Being Loved