From Agnostic to Faithful – with Caroline de Posada

Good morning, sunshine. Welcome to the Faith and Growth podcast. This phase where psychology and spirituality come together to help you rise into the person you were created to be. If you're ready to stop playing small and start living the life God designed for you, I got you. I'm Dr. Betsigera, psychotherapist, speaker, and author. And. And I'm here to help you heal, rise, and walk boldly in your purpose. So if you're ready to do that, let's get started. What if the distance you feel from God is actually the start of your return? Today's guest knows exactly what it's like to be curious, skeptical, and still deeply spiritual, even though she doesn't like to admit it sometimes. If you've ever felt spiritually in between or confused or lost, this episode is for you. Caroline de Posada, who I call Caro, is a professional speaker, an author, a podcaster, and a life coach who elevates your mindset, your wellness, and your relationships to create a life that sparks bliss. Once unsure about where she stood with faith, she now shares her journey towards a deeply spiritual life. Welcome, Karo.

Hi. I'm so happy to be here with you.

I'm happy you're here, and I'm so proud of you. Thank you.

This is a big deal.

Thank you.

This is a big deal. You're going to help a lot of people.

Amen. Amen to that. So, Caro, you are one of the human beings on earth who has helped me grow the most spiritually, and yet you struggle even. I'm sure, even to this point, like, you. You struggle with. With being called that. Like, I remember you and I having deep conversations while we were training for a marathon. And. And I would always say, like, you're the best Christian I know, and you didn't resonate with Christianity. And I always thought, like, she's a woman of faith, and you didn't resonate with being a woman of faith. So can you just share a little bit about your journey in regards to faith?

That is a loaded question. I feel like I could talk about it for an hour because the journey is long. But I do want to start by saying that thank you for saying that I'm a human being that has. Has connected you to your spirituality. But we both know that I would not be here if it wasn't for your connecting me to my spirituality. Right. So the feeling is completely mutual, and I think that's one of the things that has made our relationship so beautiful, is that you have taught me so much, and I think in, in exchange, I've been able to teach you and, and if I, if I want to share anything about a spiritual journey with your audience, is that it gets to be messy, it gets to be complicated, you get to use different language, but always coming from a place of love, of curiosity, of, of neutrality, and of really trying to understand how are we both more the same than we are different, even if sometimes we're different. Right.

Absolutely right.

So my journey started when I was little. I was born into a Cuban Catholic family. Family. And I had all the makings of a traditional Catholic experience. I went to Catholic school and, and I was just raised by a Catholic mom. That's the, you know, that's the jam here in Miami. But I had a, a wrinkle in the plan. And that was my father. My father was an agnostic and he was a critical thinker and he was an independent thinker. And he was always challenging my beliefs and always guiding me to ask questions. To be a non conformist, to not accept everything that was told to me. And he was also my guy. Like, he was like my soulmate. So my connection with him always led me to question faith and at a certain point, even reject faith because I, I, I couldn't conform to the rules or things exactly as they were. Some things didn't make sense to me, some things didn't resonate with me.

Are you, when you speak about faith, are you talking about religion? Yes. Okay.

And thank you for pointing that out because I think that's the biggest thing you've taught me in my life. You've taught me that there's a difference between religion and faith. And I grew up challenging religion. And because I grew up challenging religion through my father, I assumed that I could not be a person of faith until I met you.

Tell me more.

Well, so I went on a, I went, I would say that my journey with, with religion and faith has been a zigzag because there are, there, there have been moments in my life where I've been attracted and drawn to some certain elements of religion. You know what those are?

Tell us, tell us, tell us all.

So, as you know, your husband was my high school boyfriend.

Yes, that's how I met Caro. I met her because she's my husband's ex girlfriend. Yes. Yes, that's exactly what happened. Go ahead.

Yeah. So I met your husband, our dear mutual friend Alain, who during high school, and he had this beautiful family. And my mother was divorced from my father. And my mother desperately wanted to connect me to Catholicism and to God. My mother had this deep knowing that my path would be a better path, a happier path, if I had God in my life. That was her belief. I didn't agree with that belief, but that was her belief. So when I met Alain and I fell in love with his family dynamic, his parents, who were married, had been married forever. Loving marriage, loving relationship. To this day, like, there's such an ideal, like a couple, the family they created, my mother would always say to me, do you know what they have that's different than everybody else? They have God.

Amen.

They have their religion. And because of that, that was the first time that I looked at that. And I said to my dad, I don't know that I believe everything about Catholicism, but I do know one thing. They have something we don't have. And I want that. I want to have that kind of family and that kind of. Of unity. And at the time, I thought maybe Catholicism was the right path. Now, having said that, as life has different twists and turns, I eventually went my own path. Alain went his own path. I went to college.

Thank goodness. Thank goodness you guys broke up.

Yeah, thank goodness. Thank goodness. Because I was able to go down a path, and I once again strayed from Catholicism. And I ended up meeting my husband. And my husband wasn't Catholic either, but together, I started to believe that I did not need Catholicism to create what I had learned from Alain's family. And truth be told, I was right in the sense that I didn't need Catholicism. But once again, I was confusing faith with religion. Right. I just didn't. I thought it was like one or two. It was either or all or nothing. Right. And as you know, we've been. We've learned a lot about all or nothing mentality. So as light life will have it, align brings me you align introduces me to you. And I'll never forget, and this is a hard conversation to have, but I'll never forget the day that we sat at the mass for Fofi, for your daughter, and you stood there with a line and you were going to deliver a eulogy or a speech for the celebration of her life because she had passed away. And I sat there with the. The. Probably the deepest pain I've ever had in my life is to have, like, had you experienced that? I mean, I get emotional thinking about it, but I remember sitting in the. In that pew, looking at you, and you stood there with this strength and this power, and you held your husband's hand, and you said, I know that I am going to get through this because I am a woman of faith. And you said that, like, I am a woman of faith. And at that moment, I looked at you and my husband looked at you, and we both were like, she is the strongest person we've ever seen, period. And I thought, I don't know if I could ever do what she has done. I don't know if I could ever overcome what she has overcome, because I don't think I'm that strong. And maybe it's because I'm not a woman of faith. Maybe that's what it is. And then you invited me to run the marathon. And when you did that, and we started running together, and we started training in honor of Fofi. We started running in honor of Fofi. I didn't realize at the time, but what we were doing was we were using running as a way to process our grief and to find our bond. We were already close, but that running was, like, the thing. I don't know if you remember the day that you and I were running. I think we were doing 12 miles, and I looked at you, and I was like, it all made sense. I literally met a line because he was gonna bring me you. Yeah. Like, you were. You were the gift all along. You were the reward all along. And I made that connection, and I knew that. And during those runs where I challenged you and I challenged your beliefs, and you challenged me, and you challenged my beliefs, you gave me permission to be a woman who can question certain aspects of religion. You can. I can. You can question everything and be a woman of faith, and that changed my life.

When we were running, there were times in which you would say things that were so strong and so against my beliefs that I was like, in here. And you're like. You were my.

My.

My soul sister. Right. So I was like, I need to pray for her. And I would go home secretly. I would never tell you, but I would go home secretly and pray for him. Like, God, soften her heart. God, soften her heart. And. And I. And it was never, like, make her believe what I believe. Make her be Catholic like me. Make her. It was like, soften her heart. Because when it wasn't so much about what you believed, it was more about it's a prison. Right. Like, the same way religion can feel like a prison. Like, I can't believe that, and I can't think that way because I subscribe to being this religion. Not being against it is also a prison. Right. Like, it's also a limit.

Yes. So.

So I feel like I Remember going back and being like, just soften her heart. But then because I loved you so much and I saw Christ in you, I would always tell you're the best Christian I know, like just to bother you, but I think you liked it because you knew that meant so much to me. But you are, you live a Christ like life and that's what we as Christians are supposed to be and do. So I just, I like you was questioning like how could she not be the real thing? Because she's not. She doesn't subscribe to my beliefs if she acts and be and just ooze what the real thing is supposed to feel like. So you gave me permission to drop judgment, which caro was what separated me the most from God. So you, you showed me that it does not have to look the way it's looked like in my life because my parents were, you know, are die hard Catholics and taught me this and, and I've been raised in the church, it doesn't have to look like that to be the real thing. So you gave me permission to drop judgment, to, to focus on the whole message which is live like Christ. And I had to question my own beliefs of if it's not this, then it's not good. So thank you. Thank you. Because I am a better human because I don't judge people the way I used to. I used to think I knew the truth. You know, I am the light, the way and the truth, and he is. But more than Christ, I think it's what Christ represents, which is God's love for us. And I feel like in religion we personalize it and we make it so much about Jesus that we forget what Jesus came to do and represent. And I'm on a mission. I'm on a mission not for people to learn about like all the history and all the story of Jesus, but like to connect with him, to be one with him, to ooze his love and his grace and all the things. And I think sometimes in the name of religion we fail to do that. And I speak for myself, I think in some ways I was failing to do that. And you gave me permission to do otherwise. And you gave me permission to, to just love, love more, love hard love instead of, you know, looking at a person and making a judgment from her, of her.

Thank you. You said, you said something that I think is really important, which is seeking the truth. And one of the, one of the limitations that I imposed on myself was that I disguised the pursuit of truth for the pursuit of disbelief, of truth. Which is a really powerful thing. And I noticed this.

Can you help us discern the difference?

Yeah. So because I wanted to be a critical thinking thinker, I always wanted to question everything. Is this true? And then I wanted evidence and support to, to confirm that it was true. And for many years, there were things that would happen in my life that I did not have evidence to support whether that was true or not true. And therefore, I almost couldn't enjoy the mystery because there was nothing tangible to prove to me what is true or not true. And for many years I wrestled with that. And I remember you used to tell me, you are a woman of faith, even if what you believe is in the electric power, right? Like that's a big thing of yours. You always say that, believe in something, even if it's the electric power. And I had been a student of personal development my entire life, since I was 7 years old. Personal development was in many ways my religion. And where I was making a disconnect was that I would say, oh, I, I believe in personal accountability, personal responsibility. But I looked at the way other people spoke about faith and religion as exterior. Like, God is separate from me, so I have to depend on God to be able to do these things. And then, and then I was like, no, I, you know, I depend on myself. Which takes me back to that moment in the pew where I was like, maybe I'm not strong enough. And you. And your thing was, I don't need to be strong. I have God. And I'm like, well, I don't, I don't know if that's true. So I, I don't have that right. So because I didn't have anything tangible, I didn't have, like, evidence, real evidence, something that supported what I was looking for. So every time I had an experience, the next question would be a disclaimer of that experience. Oh, but maybe that's not true, because maybe that's not real, because maybe I just made that up in my head. Maybe that was just a coincidence. And I lived in that until one day my father had passed away and I was getting all these incredible signs of connection to him. And I'm talking to my dear friend Dave Bricker. I always share this story, and I say to Dave, dave, I just don't know if any of this is true. And he said, caro, why don't you just enjoy the mystery? Can't you just enjoy your truth is your perception? If that experience was true for you, enjoy it. It's yours. From that moment on, I stopped trying to discredit my truth. And I flipped the script. The question stopped being, is this true? And the question became, if this were true, and it serves me, how would my life be better? And then it gave me permission to behave as if it were true without having to prove that it was true. That changed everything.

And from a personal development standpoint, because here we combine psychology and spirituality. So I love psychology, which is aligned with personal development. From, from that perspective, if you believe something, it's true. I always, when I speak to, especially to kids, I tell them thoughts are sentences. That's it. That's all they are. They're a sentence that popped up in your head and you can choose to believe it or not. But when a, when a thought is recurring, it's repetitive. You hear it over and over again, whether it's from someone else or from yourself. Then that repetition, that familiarity creates the habit of thinking a certain way, which then turns into a belief. So thoughts are just sentences that if they're repeated and you're exposed to them recurringly, they become beliefs. And then if you repeat the belief, like you hold onto it, you don't try to discredit it, this is it, then that becomes reality. And in psychology that's called self fulfilling prophecy. A prophecy is something that you say is going to happen and it does happen, but self fulfilling suggests that you contributed to making it happening, happen. So when, when you so faith, when you choose that you're going to believe that that choice is what creates the magic. And there's a lot of research that proves that people who believe, people who are faithful are happier and have. That's a very powerful, powerful protective factor that helps you overcome adversity. Like even preparing for this podcast, you know, I have this, I have a lot of pressure, beautiful pressure, because I have the deep desire to be, for it to be amazing, to serve a lot of people, to bless everybody who listens to it. And I remember like feeling that pressure and being nervous about it and then just being like, oh, wait, I don't even have to do the podcast. It's God through me, so it's okay. How could it not be amazing if he's the one guiding me, if I surrender to his will for this? And I feel that what you said about God being an external thing or, or force, I deeply resonate with Karo because I think that's how they taught us, right? Like pray to God, like talk to God outside of you go look for him in church, like, you know, he can help you. And I've As I've grown in my spiritual journey, I've learned about this indwelling God, which is why I'm so obsessed with the Holy Spirit, right? Like in our Christian faith, the Trinity is God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit is that force, that divine force and wisdom that he left us with. Within. It's within. So I've learned to feel God inside of me. And because I'm human, I resonate with personalizing him and talking to him and going to the Blessed Sacrament, which is a chapel in the Catholic Church, where. Where the body of Christ is exposed in the form of. It looks like a bread, but for us, it's the body of Christ. I go and I do all those things because as a human and, like, it's easier for my mind, even though, you know, spiritual things are to be understood spiritually, not rationally. But it helps me. It helps me. Like, I feel like I'm like you, and I, like we're having this connection, this conversation. So it's not because I think he's outside of me and I have to go visit him and talk to him as he were, as if he were a person, like, you know, in front of me, but. But he's all of it. He's all of it. He's a person in front of me. He's a person. He's the spirit inside of me. He's whatever. Whatever works for each one of us. And I remember you asking me that question, like, why do you call him Him? What if it's a she or what? And I'm like, you know, for my cousin, it's nature. And for. For other people, I know it's a she or it's a. It's a force. It's energy. It's. For me, it's. It's God, it's Christ, it's the Holy Spirit, right? And I think ultimately that experience of God is what changes lives. It's not the. The concept that we name so that we can understand with our human minds, right? Like, that's. Religion helps us with that. It helps us put things in perspective. It helps us. Give us. Give us some guidelines as to how we get to live life. But I always say, even Jesus said the Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath. And I believe that sometimes in religion, in the name of religion, we have forgotten that. We have forgotten that all these guidelines and rules are meant to help us be a better human. But the moment it gets in the way of that and it. And we become judgmental and we look down on other people, then we're missing the point.

I agree. I agree.

Hi, quick interruption. If this is striking a chord and you feel called to grow in your faith, go to my free webinar@faith basedcoachingacademy.com FW don't worry, I'm going to put in the show notes. And we're back to the episode.

You've said you unpacked a lot of things and I think they're all so important. I want to share something that I think is really important for me that you've taught me. You taught me two things. One was a conversation you had with your tia where she, where you were questioning other people's practices and you were like, oh, but I don't know how to discern. Is that God? Is that not God? And your thea told you, if it's love, it's God. It's all God if it's love. And then you just said that right now, like, it's all God. And for me, I was very rebellious with language because I am a woman of words. Words matter to me. I am very careful with my words. I want to articulate clearly. I am a lawyer when words, words define a lot of things. So I was always very careful with my choice of words because I didn't want to be a hypocrite, I didn't want to be judgmental. I. There was a lot of things about, there was a lot of discrepancies. So I rejected a lot of words. And what ended up happening, and you said this at the beginning, was one, you're either in one prison or the other prison. I was a prisoner of having to create separation because our words were different. And I was taking those words so literally that I couldn't connect to some of the words. And first you told, you taught me that God is love, but then you taught me that the biggest discrepancy with God is separation. Right? Separation is the, is the death of harmony.

It's the one and only problem there is.

It's the only one. Right. Thank you. And then those two things combined invited me to consider what if your words and my words are arriving at the same place? And I think that's when you would say you're the best Christian I know is because I was a woman who was really trying to integrate a principle based life. But Christianity is all about principles. Jesus Christ taught principles. There was other people who have taught principles also. In my humble opinion, he's not the only person that taught principles. But Jesus Christ Taught incredible principles. And I was a woman of principle. So of course I can be Christ. Like, I love the guy, he's amazing. And today I get to be a person who can connect with someone who is atheist and principle driven because they use a different language. And I can connect and be with a disciple of Jesus. And I'm right there with them because of despite the language they use. Because in my mind it's all love, it's all connected. It's all about being a good human, about connecting with people, about elevating each other, inspiring each other, supporting each other, feeding off of each other, guiding our way to the light instead of the darkness. And as long as we're doing that, then I am a woman of faith.

Amen. Amen to that. You are a woman of faith. Help me understand how that has impacted your life. How is your life different because you've welcomed that possibility into it?

The simplest answer. I get to enjoy life more now. That is the simplest. I live a life that sparks bliss. I live a life that is full of magic and synchronicity because I am no longer a prisoner of trying to prove whether it's true or not true.

Period.

I just enjoy it. I enjoy the mystery, I enjoy the magic. And the more that I open my eyes to it and behave as if it's true, and the more I'm presented with evidence that I am on path and that I'm right, that's it. It's just what you said about psychology. The more you formulate thoughts, the more they become a self fulfilling prophecy. And now I am a woman who lives in magic. I see beauty and joy and the rewards of the universe all around me. And I live in, in this excitement. You know, I always tell you like, if I could put it in a pill and you could swallow it, that like I would solve all of life's problems. Because this is something I've been thinking a lot about recently. It's like wealth alone is not a measure of success. Longevity, whether it's in marriage or age or, you know, in career, longevity alone is not a measure of success. Passion alone is not a measure of success. It's these things combined with something else. What is that something else? In my opinion, that something else is the ability to enjoy the success that you have. It's the ability to look within and feel alive, feel the bliss, feel spirited, feel that you are here on purpose, living a purposeful, full life as opposed to just checking the boxes. And that I think being a person that embraces faith and connection and spirituality supports that in my life.

When your soulmate went to heaven, because he did go to heaven, he. I remember thinking, watch. I didn't just think it. I told you, watch. He's going to show you that there is something more. The one that instilled that there wasn't is the one that's going to bring you closer to God or the awareness of that bigger force. And when he passed, you were experiencing those synchronicities that you called it magic. Because God forbid. God forbid. You called it, you know, God or God incidences. Like it was magic at the beginning. I mean, synchronicities and, you know, and then, okay, like, then it was bliss. And. But. But it opens you. That's it. You could no longer not believe. And you. During that journey, we went to an event and you heard Deepak Chopra said something that impacted your life. Do you want to share it with everybody else?

He did. He did. You know, they say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I think I could have heard that a million times in my life and it would not have affected me the way that I. It affected me the day that I heard it. But he said, people think. And he was taught. What I love about him was that he was talking about the science of God, right? Like, he was talking about it from a scientific. He had. He met me at hello. You know, he had me at hello. So he was talking about science and about. About the universe and space and all this kind of stuff. And. And then he says, I laugh when people say, I am not religious, but I'm spiritual. He's like, that makes me laugh. He says, because it is nonsense. It is all the same. People think that God is impossible to find, but what they don't realize is that he is impossible to avoid.

I love that.

I love that I even felt called out at that moment. I looked at him and I was like, maybe I'm the one that he's talking to. Because I'm always like, I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual. And in that moment, I was like, if. If it's true, if it's all the same, then I am all the things. I am Catholic and Christian because that's part of my upbringing and part of my belong, belonging. It's part of my roots. And also I am agnostic. My father used to call me an Agno Catholic when I was young because he. Because I was always a little part of me that wrestled with this. I'd be like, dad, I really love the traditions of the Catholic Church, but I don't believe everything, so. And he'd be like, well, you're just an agno Catholic. I didn't realize it at the time, but my father really gave me permission to redefine myself, create the words that serve you. You don't have to fit into the box with everybody else. But I still had to go through all the struggle because that's, you know, that's part of the human experience. But now I look at it, and I'm like, I am agnostic. I am Catholic. I'm a disciple of Christ. I'm a lover of universe. I'm spiritual. I'm all the things. I don't reject any of it, because as your tia said, it is all love.

It is all love.

Thank you.

Caro. Caro, you do really beautiful work. You're the best coach I know, the only one I trust 300%. And I have very high standards. How. How can people. Two questions. Number one, how does your spirituality impact the work you do? And who are you the person for? Like, if somebody is considering a coach, like, can you help us also understand, like, I'm your coach if this is what you're looking for, I am the.

I am your coach. If you.

Have.

Are checking all the boxes, you are living a life that. That maybe seems successful on the outside, but there's the end that is missing. There's. Maybe you have wealth, or maybe you have longevity, or maybe you have a career, or maybe you have. You're doing things the way you were raised to believe they were supposed to be done. And yet something inside of you feels like there is a misalignment, there is a disconnect from your bliss. And if you are the kind of person that says, I don't want to just have money or, you know, a successful life on the outside. I want the inside of me to feel what the outside reflects. I'm your person because that is what I. I don't believe you have to burn the boats and change everything to find that end. But sometimes you do have to burn the boats, right? Like, it just depends on where you're at. So I am for those people, for those people that are looking for that. The way that spirituality impacts my. My coaching is the same way that it impacts my life. It's all together. There's no separation, right? So I show up in the same way for my coaching as I show up in my life. And you know this about me. What you see is what you get, right? There's not a. You're not going to have like the coach version of me and then the friend version of me, and then the. The other version of me, the public version of me. I am pretty much the same all the time. So if you know me, that's what is gonna. What it's gonna look like. But I will say this. I do believe that the magic of the work that I do is that I am one of the few people in the world that can truly behave as a bridge. I am a bridge in between the religious or the non religious, the purpose driven or the purpose seeking, the man, the man in the marriage or the woman in the marriage. The. I happen to have that gift of being in the middle of the road. And I know how to bring people to the center. And I believe that the magic is always in the middle. It's never on one extreme or the other. It's always in the middle. My goal is to bring people always to the middle.

That is true. That is true.

So.

So how can they find you?

Through you.

Or they find you first.

So the way you can find me is you can go to Instagram, Caroline Deposada, Facebook, Caroline deposada. My website, Caroline deposada.com. it's pretty easy and simple. But there's something. You haven't asked me that. And I don't know if you know this, but you have a life coaching school.

Oh, yes, I do.

And I've never personally been in your life coaching school. I've been one of the mentors in your life coaching school. I've supported you as you've built it.

You've had clients join my.

I've had my own personal clients join your life coaching school. I've had your clients come to work with me in coaching. We're kind of like this, this beautiful collaboration, but recently I've been thinking a lot about what you teach and. And what an incredible program you've created. And I've been like, I just can't in good faith let another semester pass without me taking your let's go life coaching program.

Let's go.

So I'm gonna be officially your life coaching student.

Oh, my goodness. Please, please join the next cohort. Cohort seven on. What is it? Fall 2025. So that you can be in the same cohort as caro because it's brilliant.

You will be in the same cohort with me because I have decided that I am such a follower of your work, and I believe so much in your work and in your program that I want to experience being your student. Not just while we're running down the block sweaty, but also in a professional setting. So I'm really excited about that. Yeah, so. So you can connect with me through my private channels or you can also connect with me in your cohort in the life coaching school season seven.

Thank you, Caro. Well, if you've been walking through a season of doubt or distance from God, let this be your reminder that you're not behind. You are being called every day, all the time. Remember to also subscribe and like and share with somebody you thought about while you were listening to us because you never know how this can bless someone and bring them back to their faith. And you, my dear friend, you are a person of faith. I love you. That's it for today's episode. I loved, loved, loved sleep spending this time with you. So thank you for joining me. If somebody came to mind while you were listening, bless them with this episode, send it to them. And if you may, please subscribe and leave a review. Those are really helpful to help us spread the message. And if you want to grow in faith and wisdom, join me@faithandgrowth.com thank you for spending this time with me. Love you. Bye.