Honest Christian Conversations
A weekly podcast dealing with cultural and spiritual issues within the Christian faith.
Honest Christian Conversations
Here's to Your Health!
What's the difference between knowing God loves you and truly believing it? This question sits at the heart of my conversation with Healy Ikerd, licensed professional counselor, marriage and family therapist, and host of the "Healthy and Redeemed" podcast.
Healey's Website: https://writtenbyhealey.com/
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Do you struggle to find your identity in Christ and not in what man thinks of you? If you're anything like me, then the answer to that is yes, A hard yes maybe Because that is a subject that has been very difficult for me to find that God loves me and to believe that. Do you believe that in your heart or do you just know it? This is something that I have struggled with a long time and I'm still working through it, as I'm sure you are. Today's guest, Healy Eichardt, is an amazing woman, so gentle spirited. Her voice is very therapeutic, Never mind her amazing Southern accent. She has a heart to help those who are searching for their identity to find it in Christ. She wants to help the Christian be healthy and redeemed, which is also the name of her podcast. She's just a remarkable woman. I enjoyed this conversation so much. We touched on several different issues which you will be able to relate to. We touched on several different issues which you will be able to relate to and it's going to help you work through any struggles you have with your mental health. It's helped me with mine. I'm not going to be lying to you. I had to repent after I got off the phone call with her because when we were in the middle of this conversation it touched a few subjects of which I was realizing God was convicting me on. It's going to be a very powerhouse episode today. You are going to get so much out of it.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Honest Christian Conversations. I'm your host, Hannah Murby, and I'm so glad you are here to tune in. Let's get to it Before the episode starts. Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode. Hi Healy, Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm very excited to talk to you. I originally heard you doing an interview on Ken Stewart's Book Marketing Mania podcast, and the episode really hit me in a way that helped me as a book writer, and one that's not exactly successful at the moment. It just helped me remember my perspective that I need to make sure God stays first. Who did I do it for and did it accomplish its purposes? That really freed me from the prison of oh, I'm not a success, or whatever. I'm a success in God's eyes because I did what he asked and that's all that matters.
Speaker 1:So I appreciate that you came on and talked about that and I've been excited that we get to talk because I've also been listening to your podcast, which I love. Your accent, your calm, calm voice is just. It's helpful when you've got four kids running around the house and you're like I'm just needing a moment so I can hear it and I'm like, okay, I can relax, I can listen, I can take her steps and yeah, I just I love all of it. So thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure to be here, anna, and thank you for saying that that means a lot to me. It's a pleasure to be here, anna, and thank you for saying that that means a lot to me. It's encouraging.
Speaker 1:All right, tell us about your testimony. How did you come to Jesus?
Speaker 2:Well, my parents although they didn't kind of walk out the Christian life, my mom introduced me to Jesus at a very young age. Like I really don't remember not having him in my life, even before I surrendered my life technically. Like I remember't remember not having him in my life even before I surrendered my life technically. Like I remember my mom told me a story actually about me praying. Because the family was very stressed out that I was sucking my thumb all the way to like second grade. My thumb was getting sores on it and I had prayed. And because everybody else was stressed out, I wasn't too stressed about it but because I could see that they were, I prayed about it and my mom had said to me because they had tried everything and then it just stopped and she asked me what happened and I said, well, I prayed and Jesus healed me and that was that. So that was like in second grade. So, yeah, the Lord's been very faithful in my life for a long time.
Speaker 2:But I gave my life to him in a vacation Bible school when I was about nine or ten and my, as I kind of grew up I mean it was there were a lot of challenges, of course, but my biggest challenge kind of came when my parents got divorced. It was the summer before my senior year and that was really traumatic for me and you know, I don't know that divorce hits everybody that hard. It didn't seem to hit my brother that hard, but it really hit me hard and it was a very place of embarrassment and just it was just hard to envision lots of things. So cause I remember when they found out at school I was mortified and I thought how did they find out? Well, apparently they put it in the paper and I didn't know that and so apparently that's the talk. But anyway, it was terrible.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know people did that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know they do that for weddings, but for divorces, people put those in the newspapers too. I think it's just part of like court proceedings or something. But yeah, it is in the. Yeah, I think you can even.
Speaker 1:I think now it's on online newspapers. But yeah, who, who knew and why? I don't know. Yeah, I know, like public shaming, what was the purpose of it?
Speaker 2:I know, and especially when you're already insecure about yourself and about all the stuff secure about yourself and about all the stuff so yeah, that was a hard thing to maneuver. But I really started kind of spiraling at that point too as far as just lots of things and started sinning quite a bit and just kind of lost myself in the whole process. I think my parents were, you know, doing their thing and struggling and all that, and so I felt like, cause, I was like 17, I was 16 at the time, but then 17, my senior year, and just kind of maneuvering through all that and kind of kept that I did. I stopped going to church for a little bit, but once I got into college, a few years later, I did start going back to church and was very faithful. I mean, I had good attendance but my life was very, not quite great. I talked good but not so much walked good.
Speaker 2:So I was in the military and I was attending a Bible study. We were studying the book of Romans. It was a ladies Bible study, but a gentleman was teaching it and we got to the scripture that said do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and it was like like God just spoke to my heart and said Healy, you need to choose either my way or the world's. And I was like God. I mean, obviously I'm over here with you. What are you talking about? That's in my pride. Of course, god, I'm here with you.
Speaker 2:But I saw a couple things just of me straddling a fence, me trying to walk two paths, and that I mean it broke my heart to go and then just him showing me all these things where I had compromised my life. At that point I said, okay, I'm all in and forgive me for all this sideways walking I've been doing. And yeah, I confessed all my sin and he helped me. He did a few things right away to kind of help me and then I had to just walk out all the other sin that I had in my life. So it was a few year process of that, because every time I'd get one thing mastered, I'd have a test or something, and if I would get it, kind of, you know, like I passed the test and then the next like flaw or area of sin would come up and then I'd have to work on that.
Speaker 2:So it was quite a long process and sometimes kind of discouraging. But God walked through me faithfully through all of that and I'm thankful. I'm not perfect, but at least I desire to be and I have. No, I don't want the world anymore. I really desire to follow God's path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the trials we go through when we're in the middle of trying to do better and God's like, oh well, let's do a sprinkling of a test. For me, it was always anger.
Speaker 1:I'm still working through it, but anger and sarcastic comebacks and everything those are like my things and it was really hard for me to just stop doing that. I can't say I'm 100 on that because I'm not. I mean, one of the reasons why I love the show Frasier is because of their sharp wit, because I can relate. I'm the same way. So you know I haven't completely abandoned that because I feel God made me that way. But I'm working on realizing when it's gone too far, when it's wrong, and having the humility to say I'm sorry if I went too far or I don't know what that was, I'm sorry. It's when you're being tested in something and God's trying to refine you and heal you is very, very frustrating and hard. So I can imagine that it was a challenge trying to turn you into who you are today, but I can see it's paid off.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not there yet. I still got my own things I'm walking through. Thankfully, god is so kind that he doesn't reveal everything at once that we need to work on. It's always a little bit at a time. I always believe he gives us what we're mentally able to handle at that time. So if he brings up to us anger or whatever, he knows that this is the time to work on it and you can do it. So at least that's encouraging. But if he just flooded us with all the areas of our life that are flawed like, we'd probably just be like I'm just going to crawl into a corner now because I can't possibly do all that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and that's why we aren't God, because we would freak out if we could see far into the future. What's going to happen? That's right.
Speaker 2:I love it. That's right. I love it, that's right, yeah.
Speaker 1:So on your podcast you talk a lot about mental health issues because you are a psychologist.
Speaker 2:Is that it Psychotherapist? I'm a licensed professional counselor and licensed marriage and family therapist are the license I carry. I was in broadcast journalism and I always say don't hold that against me because like I'm like not a professional. That was like 30, 40 years ago I don't even know how many years ago but that was my, that was my major in undergraduate and I always have my friend, one of my good friends in college, like he does radio now and I always wanted to do a radio show and and so like doing this has and I like to talk and talk about mental health stuff and I love to talk about God. I could just talk all day on that but so podcasting was like the perfect thing to that. But so podcasting was like the perfect thing to you know, kind of the I don't know, I don't know, it was just like all and I don't.
Speaker 1:It served everything that you love doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I get that so yeah, because I don't think I was gonna go have a radio show like that. It passed at some point. Yeah, so because you can't just break into it, and I had an accent too. So I had because I wanted to do tv broadcasting and my accent was not like my tapes. You know that I would send out. I'm like, oh, that's a very strong accent. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean probably, if I had to send them south, yeah, I'd have more of a chance, but sending them north god, I love accents, so I would have enjoyed I think they're more appreciated now than they used to be, because that's true yeah, when I first went, I moved to wisconsin for a little bit after I graduated college and uh oh gosh, they gave me such a hard time all the time I was on.
Speaker 2:I think they think I'm a bumpkin or something. I don't know how they talk about me in Arkansas. It's kind of strange.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's, that's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it's definitely.
Speaker 1:Podcasting has been fun for me because I am really introverted and I have never had well, I don't want to say never, but rarely have I talked with people who disagree with me in any capacity.
Speaker 1:And you know just talking on here and you know getting out confusions. I have questions, I have concerns I have, and then sometimes I'll get pushback from certain comments or whatever and I have to figure out how am I going to handle that, because I don't know how to handle that. I'm not used to it. I just want to curl up and be like oh, they hate me, but they don't hate me, they just have their opinion and I need to have mine. I've never really shared the gospel with too many people who need to hear the gospel, who don't already know it because we go to church together. So podcasting was easier for me and my introverted shyness, because I don't have to go walking up to somebody at a grocery store and say, hey, you know Jesus, I can just do my podcast and then I can hand him a card, a business card for my podcast and we're like I think you might need to hear this by.
Speaker 2:That is so good. I think this is the perfect medium for introverts, because I am too Like I, yeah. That's why it's like oh yeah, I can talk, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if I have something to say, I will talk. Just ask my husband. Sometimes I talk too much and you know, on here I could talk for a while with somebody. Depending on the guest, we could talk for a long time. Maybe someone won't want to hear it, but we could. But you get me in the middle of a big crowd and forget about it. I'm not going to say anything unless I have a friend there and then I'm only talking to that friend. I mean, if I go to a church event and there's people there and I don't know them, I just kind of sit there and if I have my phone, I'll tool around with my phone. If I don't have my phone, then I just sit there and look really awkward because I don't know what to do. But I'm just I don't. I don't go up and start talking to people. I just I don't know if I don't have the capacity, if I'm too stubborn and don't want to try. I don't know what it is, but I just I can't do that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, podcasting is the only way. Yeah, that, I think, is just a skill to be learned. I think some people yeah, it comes naturally because that's how God made them, and thank goodness for those people in the world, because we probably wouldn't have any friends if they didn't have some extra.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't have any friends if they didn't. I know I've got some too. I one time our church was doing an outreach type of thing and I went with them and they had us in pairs and we walked around the casino, around here and we just would go up to people and say, hey, do you want us to pray for you? And that was scary for me. I was like I can't do this, but my partner's like you can go. I was like no, but I did it a couple of times and I think only one person said no, thank you, which was fine, and I don't even think they said it to me, I think it was to my partner, which is fine with me.
Speaker 1:But the people I got to pray with I think it was two people. It felt nice, it was a nice feeling. I just I don't know if I could do that again without somebody there that I trust, who's a friend, helping me through it, because if someone asks me questions that I don't know answers to, I feel ill-equipped. And then I feel like a dummy and I know that's Satan messing with me, because I know God will give us what we need at the time that we need it, but it's just I don't know if it's some sort of mental blockage with me that I'm just keeping myself in this corner. I don't know.
Speaker 2:So what if you were somewhere and God said for you to go talk to that person and pray for them, like you felt the leading of the Holy Spirit to do that? Would you do it then?
Speaker 1:Yes, I would be scared. I have done things like that before because I've felt that I need to give food to a homeless person. So I would go do that and then I might say God loves you, maybe I would talk to them. I mean, usually have my kids with me so I can just sit there forever. But I have helped people. I have done it before. It's just very sporadic and not often.
Speaker 1:And I come up with excuses and I feel like a terrible mom sometimes because my son one time he saw someone across the street for where we were, which is a busy area, and he said, mom, there's a homeless person, we should give him some food. And I said, mom, there's a homeless person, we should give him some food. And I said, oh well, they're all the way over there. You know, like I'm in a car, I could just drive over there, but it's a busy, awkward intersection and I was like, oh, he's like, but he was just, he really wanted to do it. And I said, whatever, I want to get home, whatever I want to get home, it just was driving the whole time and I felt terrible. I was like, oh, why'd you do that? So I beat myself up a lot which I've heard you talk about in your podcast not to do those things and yeah, I think a lot of moms do that. The mom guilt is real and all that stuff I'm going to do a podcast on.
Speaker 2:Actually it's one of my next three, I'm not sure, maybe this next one, but on guilt, on false guilt versus true guilt, and I have some mom guilt and talk about some mom guilt in there, so nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Because a lot of people struggle with that, and I tell you that when I first learned about false guilt, like I was like, oh my gosh, this makes so much more sense Because sometimes I'm like really trying to always figure out this emotion. Why did God really realized that guilt's supposed to be a temporary emotion, like true guilt's supposed to be a temporary emotion? That like just clicked with me. Okay, so that's. False guilt is what we carry around and beat ourselves up with, which is not we haven't done anything wrong, it's just really condemnation. True guilt is meant it's got a good purpose.
Speaker 1:That's going to be a good episode. I can hope.
Speaker 1:I'm ready, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I think a lot of Christians, especially women, moms, we compare, we blame ourselves if something goes wrong with our kids, and we just put all this burden onto ourselves, onto our hearts, onto our minds, and Satan keeps us there and it's very toxic. You can't be used by God in that way. You can't be useful in any sense. You're not doing anyone any favors that way, and a lot of times you're not doing anyone any favors that way, and a lot of times I'm aware of it and I still can't stop it and I hate, I hate it. I get so mad and then I get mad at myself for that. I was like this is wrong, why are you doing it? And then I, you know, got something else I feel guilty for.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's awful, yes, yeah, but that just takes practice. I think that, except once you kind of learn truths and skills and once you try to implement them I mean I'm all for like one out of 10 times to start with and then just work your way up, because you're not just going to change, especially if you've been in a thought pattern for a long time. You don't can't just change that like that. I may sound easy, but really I'm thinking if you can catch it one time, that's more than you did before and that's a big, big deal, because then you know you can do it and and then, yeah, just keep going. So so it sounds like you know it's just hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard I heard I think it was a comedian he said that millennials know what their problems are. They just don't know how to fix them. Like they're very in tune with what their problems are exactly, but they just don't know how to fix them. And I'm like bingo. That sums me up pretty well. I know how to fix them, though I need God to help me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And being healthy is a hard thing to do, and that's not always something that we run to do. We don't want to do the hard thing. It's much easier to do the easy thing, because that's kind of what our society teaches us too. It's ease, ease, ease.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't want to hurt, we don't want to feel anything negative and walk through that. And that's where we grow is through the struggles, through the trials. We grow in that, we don't grow in the easy. So, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1:But, hey, what are you going to do? Yeah, hey, friends, have you joined the Honest Christian Conversations online group yet? If you haven't, you're missing out on a perfect opportunity to grow your relationship with Jesus Christ. This is a community for those who want to go deeper in their relationship. You can do Bible studies together, ask the questions you have biblically and get the answers that you might need or maybe you're somebody who has answers to somebody else's questions. You can leave your prayer requests. You can leave your praise reports. This is a community. This is what church is supposed to be, and I am so glad that I finally took that step to make this group so that people's lives can flourish in Jesus name.
Speaker 1:Also, if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out on an opportunity there as well. I send out a weekly email chocked full of so much awesome content that I don't have time right now to share it all with you. But when you do sign up for that mailing list, you get my seven-day free devotional that I created just for those who sign up for the mailing list. If you haven't joined either of these, you can go to my website, honestchristianconversationscom and sign up there, or you can use the links for it in the show notes. So what is a struggle that you went through as a child that you have worked through the most I've heard you talk about on a couple podcasts that you had? I think it was anxiety issues, or you weren't sure that you had anxiety but because that wasn't what it was called back then. But what would you say has been the biggest thing that God's been working on with you since forever.
Speaker 2:I think probably the biggest thing was my identity, like who I was, because I'd heard a lot of just messages that either someone said alluded to or I had proof of that I was dumb or that I was ugly, I wasn't worth knowing, like things like that. And so everything I did I did that Like one time fail up, I'm too dumb or I'm too you know, or if I didn't have a boyfriend, oh it's because I'm ugly. I mean, you know, oh, I've got a crappy personality, like all that stuff. And so when I went into the military, it did help my confidence in some respects as far as, like I knew I could do more than I probably thought I could. And then, as I more than I probably thought I could, and then as I well, my undergraduate degree, I mean it kind of proved that I was right because my grades weren't that great in undergraduate school but I did learn a lot. And then when I went to get my master's I would get A's and that kind of helped me like rethink, like, oh, maybe I am smart, but what really changed was really studying the Bible and seeing who God had made me to be, understanding my worth and value is in Him, and so just kind of that shift of like it's not who I say I am, who others say I am, like it's who God says I am. And then you got this long list of things that he says we are in the Bible and that's pretty uplifting.
Speaker 2:And once I got that, well, when I there was one part I was struggling with all that sin that I had done over those years, I was constantly running that through my mind of like, oh my gosh, god's never going to be able to use me because I've got all this stuff, because I just moved back to the town where I'd done a lot of my sinning and a lot of people had known it way back then. So I thought, what if I run into these people? Just the fact that the part where I was like beating myself up and where I could get to the place where I actually called on Scripture, saying I'm a new creation and just accepting God's forgiveness of me, he's forgiven that of me. I don't need to keep bringing it up. I don't need to, because it keeps me stuck when I'm condemning myself like that, going oh yeah, god's forgiven me, but I still feel bad.
Speaker 2:That's not how forgiveness works. We have to walk in the truth of forgiveness. We can't accept his forgiveness and then keep saying I'm a crappy person because I've done all these sins. You have to just accept it. He's removed it. He doesn't want to hear about it again, unless it's moving me forward in some way. Once I kind of work through all that I'm it's not to say insecurity doesn't creep up on me because it does and, um, it's easy for me to go to the place that I'm dumb or I'm ugly or things like that. It's very easy for me to get there. But because of the work I've done too, it's easy for me to get back out. I mean, sometimes I play my little pity party, you know, for a few minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, sometimes they're fun. I don't know what we think is fun about it, but it must be, because we do it often, it's so hard, I know.
Speaker 2:And then if I was, oh yeah, and then I you know because, but but that's, I think, okay. I think we see that a lot in what David did in the Psalms. It's like we lament but then we pull ourselves back around to God's promises and who he is and what he says, and then we ground ourselves and go forward, in that we don't stay in the lament. We can lament, but we pull ourselves back through that process of like, oh yeah, god says I'm da-da-da-da-da and I don't have to stay there. So it may take some minutes.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point to remember. I mean, look at the lamentations, but don't focus on the lamentations. Focus on what they do after they're done. There's nothing wrong with crying out to God and telling him how sucky you think things are he knows anyway but you have to not stay there and just say okay, amen, bye, no, let God speak to you, let him remind you of the truth and then walk in. That that's what's going to give you peace and joy and strength and endurance to continue through what you think is sucky. So that's definitely. That's a really good reminder. And no, I needed. I needed it.
Speaker 1:I mean, identity is something that many people nowadays, especially our young people, are losing, that they're not getting the firm foundation that we had when we were younger, in school. You know, talking about how there's only two genders and it's like that in and of itself is enough to throw chaos into the wind. Now they're being told all this other stuff. So now how are they going to be able to know what their true identity is? Because someone's telling them it's this, someone's telling them that. Who's telling them. The truth is really heartbreaking, and I'm currently going through it with my eldest, so I deeply understand this subject and it's hard, but I just I know I've struggled with my identity too.
Speaker 1:As a teenager I was very self-conscious.
Speaker 1:There's some reasons why, some deep reasons that I won't get into.
Speaker 1:A lot of people who have listened have probably listened to me talk about various things on other podcasts, but I've had a lot of different issues within my life that have given me low self-esteem and I'm still working through it. I'm in my forties now and I'm still working through all the things. I'm saying oh, I look fat, I feel chunky and you know, then my kids will make jokes or something and I get mad at them for the jokes and it's like, well, I'm actually saying it about myself. So am I mad that they're making the joke or am I mad because I believe it? And that's just literally an epiphany to me right now is that I'm realizing that's probably why I'm mad at them is because I believe it and I get offended at it because my son made a really funny joke recently like that, and I didn't I didn't like snap at him to where he was upset, but I just was snarky towards him about it and as I'm driving I'm thinking about it, I was like why did it bother me so much?
Speaker 2:And I just had that moment where I just realized why.
Speaker 1:But these identity is so important and to have it in Christ. Satan can't mess with you. Otherwise and that is something that I have always struggled with is truly believing in my heart. What I know is true. What the Bible says is true. I know all of it. I know what he thinks of me. I can quote some of it, but having it seep in my heart and believing it in my heart has always been a struggle point, no matter how many times I've seen him come through for me and be there for me in my dark times, and I don't know what it is. I don't know why I can't, just I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:Do you ever speak it out loud sometimes? Because sometimes that can be a big to where we actually can. We're saying it, we're hearing it, we're processing it Sometimes. That is, I mean, that's been helpful for me because, especially when my thoughts are just going like you're terrible, you're terrible, you're terrible, and if I go, wait, I'm made in the image of god and I just say it out loud, sometimes that will stop all that stuff.
Speaker 2:And then walking in that of like okay, what is the person in the image of god do? What do they do? They? They're not sitting in the corner like they're. You know, I'm not saying I'm great, I'm saying God is great and I, I understand that I have flaws and I don't have to be enough per se because God's enough and so and he's made me to be he delights in us. So that just in and of itself reminds you that you are someone of value and God, just like you, delight in your kids, like he delights in you. Your kids aren't perfect and they can be a little annoying sometimes, but but you know, that's how he feels about us. And then I think, just walking in that, just think about if, like one of your sons, they, how many?
Speaker 1:sons do you have? I have two and I have three girls.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, you are busy.
Speaker 2:Well, if one of them like really didn't believe that you love them, hmm, believe that you love them, that would be very painful and hurtful if you did all you could do to convince them and they didn't respond, which I think God probably experiences a lot from us because we have such a hard time accepting that he can love us. But in just putting in the parent thing, like we love our kids not because of what they do or whatever like that we love them because they're ours and they're great and they have great things and they have not so great things. But I think when they can feel secure in your love, then that can. That brings you great joy too. So, and maybe just thinking like speaking the things out loud and then walking in, that your head will start to believe it and I'm sure you pray about it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, I definitely don't speak the truth as much as I have been the lies and not reminding myself out loud of what I should be. And I know my kids see it and you know occasionally they'll say something like, oh, I'm fat, and it's like you're not fat, you're anything but fat. And then you know You're not fat, you're anything but fat. And then you know my husband will kind of be like this is safe for you. Well, I'm okay, listen to yourself. It's like I hear it all and I know, but getting it to internally believe it, because I know I'm not fat by all standards, but I used to be 90 pounds in high school.
Speaker 1:When I graduated from high school, before I had children, I was five foot one and 90 pounds. I was a skinny thing up until I got pregnant with my first child and then I blew up like a balloon. I don't even like looking at the maturity pictures. It was gross. And since then I've been having kids. I've, you know, lost some of that weight and was decent looking when I had my second and to my third child.
Speaker 1:But after that it's just kind of. I have some stuff on me that's still sticking there. Things aren't where they used to be and I'm older now, so I mean it's the natural course of life, especially when you're having children. It's just really hard for me because my whole life I could eat whatever I wanted and I never gained any weight. My grandparents used to think I had a tapeworm. They were just so concerned. I never gained any weight and, like I said, 90 pounds outside of high school up until I was 22 and having my child, I was like that's all I knew. And then all of a sudden I go from that to you got meat on your bones. No, you can't eat whatever you want. Yes, you've got bags under your eyes and your hair's falling out. It's like, ah, welcome to you.
Speaker 2:It doesn't give me the light. It's like ah, it's like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm just it's something that I need to process and I need to accept that this is just the way that it goes and that I'm not hideous. My husband loves me, my kids love me. I I don't want to say I need to love me, because that whole self love thing just kind of. But yeah yeah, but it's like I kind of need to self-like myself, I guess. I don't know if that's a thing.
Speaker 2:Accepting who God's made you to be. And you know, I remember it's like, okay, I've got to spend the rest of my life with myself, so I better start liking who I'm hanging out with and I really do. I think I'm funny, I think I'm kind of quirky in how I think I'm scatterbrained. They're not all positive things, but I've learned to just like it about myself, and part of that is my own self-talk of how I talk to myself. I want to talk about myself in a God-honoring way and the way that brings Him glory about how he has to myself. I want to talk to about myself in a God honoring way and the way that brings him glory about how he has made me.
Speaker 2:You know, with even with my perfection imperfections, whether it's physical or mental, I think women do struggle a lot with their body image. But I think you've really at some point, just because we do get older and it doesn't get any better, like I still have to tell myself, okay, I'm, I'm striving to be healthy, that's all I can't control. I mean, I could try to control all this, but I'm not going to be going to the gym every day. That's not in my, that's not in my thing. I don't have the money, I don't have the time, I don't even have the ambition. So I can do what I can and then I just have to accept, like, my goal is to be healthy and I would like it to be a certain way. But you know, that may or may not happen.
Speaker 1:It's so funny, though I don't understand where I'm getting all the negative things from, because people will say you don't look old enough to be 40. You don't look like you have five kids. And they say all the positive things and I eat it up, I love it, but I don't believe it. And my husband's like why not? And I was like I don't know, I just don't, I don't get it. I was like I know these things are true, but I don't understand why.
Speaker 2:I just I don't know. It's a. It's a well-worn neural pathway. It's just things go right through there. So once you start practicing and, I think, saying things out loud, it'll create a new neural pathway.
Speaker 2:So I think our brain is kind of geared toward the negative. We do take negative with a lot more weight than we'll take positive. Like a job evaluation, like they can have 14 cool things and one bad thing and we're focused on the one bad thing. Like some of that's just the way our brain is, is kind of wired, and we have to work the other way. I don't think there's anything wrong with focusing on the one, but we don't want to stay there. We got to get back to okay, I'm going to focus on the other ones too. I can improve that. But I got to also celebrate this part of myself that, hey, I'm a hard worker, hey, I don't miss any time at work or whatever are the positive things. So, yeah, yeah, so some of that's just our fallen, our fallen world.
Speaker 2:So don't beat yourself up too much about that, right, not to. But that's the vicious cycle, right? We? Yeah, we'll say something negative to ourselves. We'll recognize it. It's negative. And then we will say something negative to ourselves, we'll recognize it's negative and then we'll say something else like why can't you stop thinking like that? It's a very vicious cycle. So sometimes if you can just stop asking yourself why you're doing things, that helps a lot, because it's kind of accusatory. We'll go why are you doing that? That's automatically implying we've done something wrong. So, yeah, sometimes when we can just stop doing that part and go, yeah, that is painful, that does hurt or that is a sensitive area, and then we land somewhere else. But God loves me and I'm going to rest in that. And how would a loved person act in this scenario? So, yeah, I've got good comebacks for when people say certain things about my way because, well, I'm older and I don't. People tell me I don't look as old as I am, but I have a gut, and thank goodness you can't see it on TV, I mean on video, but I'm the same way. Sometimes people idea, but I'm the same way Sometimes people, sometimes people may have made comments and so I've just created a statement that I say back to them.
Speaker 2:When they say something like that and it's not anything that's rude but it does it's enough to kind of stop them in their tracks and make them think before they say certain things about I need one for you look tired or you look sick, because I've heard that, those two, I'm thinking who says that to somebody? I mean, unless if you had actually said I'm sick, like why would you say that to somebody? But having a good comeback line and that's where I think sarcasm can be your friend is where you say something that will stop them in their tracks from saying anything else and kind of convict them a little bit, but it's not anything rude or disrespectful to them. So sometimes you just need a good, a good statement. I'm going to have to work on that. I need to work on that one too.
Speaker 1:I haven't heard that in a bit. Healy, you are so fun to talk to. I've loved having you on talking about all this helping me through. You know certain issues that I know I have, but give practical tips to me, and I know other people who are listening who can definitely relate, and it's great to see how God has helped you find your identity in him and know that even with any negativity that comes, you have him as your anchor, which is what I think we all crave at one point is to have him as our anchor. And if anyone wants to listen to your podcast to get more of this awesome information, what is the name of it and where can they find it?
Speaker 2:Well, it's on all podcast streaming places, but it's called Healthy and Redeemed and yeah, that's what I'm hoping. I can encourage myself and others to live healthy and redeemed. I think, as the church, we really need to work on our health part. We are redeemed, but sometimes we just because of emotions and our thoughts and our behaviors we're not always acting the healthiest. So I want Christians to be healthy. I want us to be the healthiest people walking the planet that we should. You know people should be looking to us like, wow, they got it all together. And we don't. But you know people should be looking to us like, wow, they got it all together. And and we don't.
Speaker 2:But you know we don't want to be like I don't know, just acting not appropriate, especially in front of others.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we're supposed to be the salt and light and the example of Christ to people. So we can't fake it, it's's the. The world will be able to tell yeah.
Speaker 2:so there's a lot of stuff going on in the christian sort of what. There's a scandal that they start right now and I just think sometimes, like with false teachers and all that, like they're very they people follow them and just you know. That's why it's so important to be in the Word, not just for our own health, but so that we can discern truth too. But oftentimes it's the unhealthiness that cause people to just either follow or lead in that way, and it's so unhealthy it makes me so sad. So, and just being hurt in the church in general will cause a lot of, you know, mistrust and unhealthiness in and of itself. I don't know if you've gone through that, but I've gone through a church where I have the shepherd, you know, failed his flock greatly. That it that rocks your world, like it's hard to recover from that. So, yeah, so that's my goals, just to help people be as healthy as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a wonderful goal. Mental health is definitely a hot topic right now. Everyone's talking about it. Some are doing it the right way, like you are. Some of them aren't, and we all just need to remember who we are in Christ. Especially as Christians, we need to be the beacon that people come to when they're struggling through things. We need to be able to be there for them and to help them, and we can't really do that if we're stuck and complacent in certain things that maybe even they're struggling with. So we have to have to trust in God and know who he is, know who he says we are and know what his word says, because we can easily be led astray. Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you again, healy, for coming on. I love your conversation.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was so great to meet you, and thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.
