Dr. Anita Phillips on Winning the War with Your Emotions

Hey y'all, it's me, Chrystal Hurst. What did we say we're going to do? We're going to call this Chrystal on the Couch or something like that. I don't know. I'm here on the couch again, but I'm here and I'm so glad to be here because y'all, it's one thing to have a conversation with a person and you can hear them. That's cueing old podcast world. It's another thing to have a podcast with someone that you can see them virtually. That's like post-2020 world. But it's a whole nother thing to be able to have a conversation with someone in person. That I can legit, like, touch in the flesh and share my conversation with them with you. Why do I feel like we're petting each other? If you don't already know who Dr. Anita is, you are living under a rock. She has been on the podcast before. We have spent more than a few nights voice texting each other. She's a great person to know, not only because of her ministry, but because of who she is personally. And I'm glad to have you on the show with me today.

I'm really glad to be here.

I I love couches too. Okay, so, you know, I— you went through it to get this beautiful book into the world. And I do wanna reiterate, it is beautiful. Hey. It's beautiful on the front and it's beautiful on the back. It's wonderful. I know what that journey is like to get things to look and feel the way you want them to look and feel because you're gonna have to have this book on your book table for years to come. Yes. And you wanna like it. Yes, and you gave me that advice early on.

And I held on to it. Yeah, I held on to it.

But I also know it's just been a journey to get the whole thing written. Okay. But before we even get into this heavy stuff, I want to talk about your tiny house.

When I say I love a tiny house— have you done it more than once?

I have.

So I'm a big Airbnb person anyway. So anytime I'm using Airbnb, I always look for a tiny house, even if it's a weekend, if or whatever. I just love them.

This is if you're by yourself.

Yes.

Okay.

Oh, absolutely. Nobody else in my family or friend system has the passion for the tiny house that I have.

Would you even go into a tiny house with someone else?

I don't think so.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't think so. I've never been in like a 2-bedroom one, so I don't think so.

Well, they have the ones where like you have the loft up top.

Yeah, but that's still almost like staying in the same room. No, I think, yeah.

It needs to be by yourself.

It's an individual pursuit, but I do love it.

Have you ever had an experience where you tried out a tiny house and it worked out okay, but you were feeling a little some kind of way when you got there?

I wouldn't say a tiny house, but I once stayed in one of those getaway cabins, the ones that are like in the woods. Have you seen those ads? And there's like—

I see them and it looks so inviting. It's so big glass. It says you have to drive there.

And you see the woods.

And then you're there by yourself.

And then you're there by yourself. And that was the moment that it became challenging. It's as beautiful as it looks. I encourage everyone to try the Getaway brand. I'm not here to— But it did get dark. It was the woods. And yeah, I did cut that trip a little short.

Did you really?

I did.

How long were you supposed to stay? How long did you stay?

I was supposed to stay like 4 nights and I think I made it through 2. The second night there was a storm and it was windy and these like nut things were dropping off the trees. And so it was like hitting the roof of it and you're like, is that the ax murderer come to get me? Or was that a tree? Like it—

Do you watch the scary movies?

I do not watch the scary movies, but I do watch the crime docs, the whole SVU, Law and Order situation. No, not the fiction. I watch like Cold Case Files, like the real stuff.

The real stuff.

Yeah. And that's nerdy like that. And I am, cuz I'm always just like, one, I'm really glad they catch people. So one of the reasons I like the cold case is that they get solved.

They get solved. Yeah.

Because I hate that for the families. But I probably should watch less of them because, because you have active things. I had a lot of thoughts at the, at the, in the woods.

I can't, I can't watch scary movies for that reason.

Yeah.

I watch Freddy Krueger, or whatever it was called. What was the name of the movie?

Nightmare on Elm Street, girl. Y'all were allowed to watch that?

No.

Oh, OK. About to say.

That's what I get for sneaking off.

Us church kids weren't allowed to watch that, Nightmare on Elm Street.

No, but I did watch it.

But you did it, see.

And then for months after, I went to bed looking under my bed. Yes, of course. Because I just knew this was the night when the hands were going to come through the mattress and take me down to hell for watching the movie I wasn't supposed to watch.

Sure.

Okay, so you talk about the getaways in the tiny houses like you don't— you haven't just done this once or twice. Like, this is a thing.

This is a thing for me. I've been going away by myself, um, up until my son left for college in 2016. I was going like twice a year.

For what purpose? Because you weren't writing a book.

I call it me-cation. Okay, me-cation. I call it me-cation. I need alone time.

Okay.

It's necessary for my emotional health. I'm just built that way. And so, yeah, I went away and enjoyed it. It was like 3 nights or something, and I really enjoyed it. And so I was like, I need to do that more often, because I came back.

When did you do it for the first time?

I'd say, gosh, probably around— we were pastoring then, I don't know, maybe 2010 or '11.

Okay. So I started doing that fairly— I mean, that's recent, like in your 30s, late 30s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. When you get old enough to realize you can do Right, exactly. And you can afford it, and you have some things, right? But you know, your kids aren't gonna die while you're gone. And they will not—

that's correct—

die.

They won't die.

They will live and not die and declare that their mama got some rest, is what they will do. Anita, chapter 17, verse 2. Um, but yeah, it was wonderful. I mean, really, just— there's a difference between being away.

Yeah.

Where you're not thinking, I could be doing this, or I could be doing that, or even have that sense of actively choosing not to. When you're in the environment, right?

Because it's still work, right?

But to be completely away, yeah, and just sleep until you wake up, um, order room service, cry randomly, journal, binge watch, go to a show, go to a concert, whatever. Just be alone. Like, and that's— everybody doesn't need that.

The first time you did it though, did you say, I need— like, was it a decision or it was a— it was, uh, Like, I had to. Like, you know, sometimes the first time we get catapulted into something, it's because we've been thinking about it a while. Sometimes it's because life is blowing up and I gotta get out of here.

Yeah, you know what? My husband took me on an anniversary trip to the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

And you were like, "Go home, I'mma stay a couple extra days." I was like, "I'll be back." So that wasn't too—

Whenever Ocean's Eleven came out and they showed the fountain. And it's just like, I wanna see that person. So we went. And I loved it. And he didn't like adore it, but I did. So I was just like, I think I'm going to come back here and like spot out by myself. And so, you know, he was like, yeah, go ahead. So that's kind of how it started.

You know, I think there's a difference between, you know, as you get to know yourself, there's a difference between who you are when you're totally by yourself with no agenda and even who you are when you're on vacation with nothing to do. If someone else is there, there's an energy and a vibe to being conscious to their presence. Whether that is, "What do you wanna do?" "What do you wanna do?" Or, "Did you like that meal?" Or, "You're ready to eat and I'm not." Or— and it doesn't have to be weighty. It's just still in the air.

It is. It's totally different. And I also do sometimes go away with a friend. So, one of those, in a twice-a-year pattern, I usually would go alone one time. And the other time, I might invite a friend to come with me. And that's a different kind of rest. But I had to do the alone thing. More than the friend thing.

So you do the tiny house thing?

Yeah.

But you do Bellagio things too? Yeah. So like, what top 2?

Top 2 me-cations?

Top 2 me-cations.

Mm. I mean, Bellagio is going to be in the number 1 slot. But why?

That— is it the hotel?

It's the hotel.

Okay.

So I used to be like, I love Las Vegas, but now I just love the Bellagio.

Yeah.

I rarely even leave the hotel. It's got the shopping, it's got the restaurants, the rooms are incredibly comfortable. And this is pre-COVID.

Yeah.

They kind of cut back on some of the things now. And I'm a little like, bring back the details. Yes.

But prior to that, um, they give you the ketchup in the little self-serve container.

Yeah. The tater sticks. They used to stamp the B, the Bellagio B into the butter.

Yeah.

Like now they don't.

Yeah.

Like little stuff that I'm like, come on, you guys.

Come on. I remember.

I remember. But, um, I'd say top because their spa is amazing.

Okay. I've been there once. I didn't go to the spa.

The spa is amazing. I think that it is maybe my favorite spa ever.

Okay.

So, and then over time, like you get to know people.

So I had the same people doing my massage.

Massages. The same woman was doing my skin, so everything was happening there. So it becomes kind of relational. And then for the times I took friends with me, I feel like you build memories into a space. There's something about sharing space. And so then when I'd be there alone, I would remember, oh, me and my friend, we did this and that. And so it's all in the space. I did my 40th birthday party there.

Okay.

7 friends. How many times have you been? I have really couldn't possibly, possibly estimate that. It's— but it's been— it was enough times.

Flights to Las Vegas aren't expensive. That's how good old Southwest. That's great.

Old us. So I would say that's top. What's number 2? Number 2, man, that's a toughie. Probably one— it wasn't a tiny house, it was just an Airbnb in California. And just as I could see the ocean, Newport Beach.

Okay.

Yeah, the ocean.

I stayed in one on a hill in, uh, what's the name? My brain is dying cuz I'm 50-something.

Oh, right up here.

If you keep going down, if you keep going down from Newport, from Newport, um, Huntington Beach. Laguna.

Laguna Beach.

Yes. Little house with a red door. And from the back patio, I could see the ocean.

Laguna Beach is probably one of the most beautiful places in the world. It's just beautiful. So I support you.

Yeah. Been there. Been there twice.

The ocean.

It's the ocean.

It is the ocean.

It's the ocean.

And it's not just the look, although the view of the ocean.

No, it's the sound.

The sound of the ocean.

It's the feel of the air. Yeah.

It is, but the sound of the ocean literally shifts our nervous system into a calmer state. So it's true. It's biology.

Like the little thing we see on Instagram where it's like you need to be near water. Did you see that thing? And it's like things happen in your body.

They do.

When you get in the water.

It's a literal biological shift. Your autonomic nervous system shifts when the sound of the ocean. So being there constantly can, people are almost in a semi-meditative state. That's why everyone's like, hey, hi.

Right, I was gonna say.

And everybody's mood is like, everybody's mood is up. Yeah, and it's not just because of other things being legal in California. It is actually. The ocean is actually its own thing. Yeah, it's real. It's amazing. We're meant to be near the water. We're 70% water.

OK, so you are one of the most— you have this very unique blend.

OK. She's like, what's coming?

Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Because I think this speaks to how you uniquely blend a lot of things. But as a person— mm-hmm. You have this very unique blend of being who you are unapologetically. Mm-hmm. No holds barred. I have no problem saying what it is. And if you interpret me correct— incorrectly, I'll correct you. Like, and a lot of that can sometimes be associated with people who are not kind.

Mm-hmm.

Who are not deeply empathetic.

Mm-hmm.

Who are not, um, thoughtful about the person that's sitting in front of them. Um, but you blend all of that into like, I really care about you, and if I haven't heard from you, I'm gonna hunt you down. You've done that for me a couple times.

Hey, just a little.

Um, but also, don't get it twisted, I mean what I say. Oh, and thank you. But I'm just saying, like, to think that those two things can coexist, or to see them coexist in you, has been, um, really— I've loved seeing that. I love seeing that. Because as a— I don't know where I get this from, but my assumption is when are very clear, very direct, kind of very bottom line. I assume all kinds of things because my empathy gets worn all out on my sleeves, and I have to work really hard to be clear and say what I mean and all that. So I'm like, "Oh, we can coexist." We can, yeah. I can say what I mean. The same is true of what you bring into the space in which so many of us know you. You are deeply empathetic to the pain that everybody feels. You are deeply concerned about what people are saying and not saying, what they know about, what they're experiencing, or what they may not even realize. You bring this to the same space that you're like, let me tell you how this works.

Just trying to help.

And you have this, and yes, and then you, you know, and then it's the whole persona too. It's the whole hair thing. You know, you swing, you have this whole thing that you do when you're speaking. It's great.

The swoop.

The swoop. It's the swoop. It's a swoop. But you bring both to the space and it says, hey, I can love Jesus, I can love science. I can learn from science. I can love people. I can speak clearly. All of these things can go together. And I think the reason why we often miss taking care of ourselves is because we separate them.

Yeah, we do. Heart and mind.

Yeah, I literally— okay, so you can diagnose me. So literally today I made a comment to someone, 'cause my team is sitting here watching, a couple girls from the team, and they've probably felt my vibe a little bit today. If I'm going to say it clearly, be direct, tell you what I mean, it's because I'm at the end. Mm. But I'll be thinking and feeling those things the whole time. I just don't feel comfortable being in that spot.

Yeah.

But then not releasing those things puts me in a whole nother spot.

All this churning on the inside.

That is correct. That is correct. Why do you think— we can talk about me or the world. Either way, uh, why do you think so many of us do that? Separate what we're really thinking and feeling from how we operate and engage in our world. Why are we separating those two things? Because if it's not healthy to live that way, what entices us into that?

I mean, I think different personalities definitely experience it differently, but it's very common for us to not be moved to an action that feels confrontational until we're angry or exhausted. And if we would go a little sooner, I think it's okay to go a little sooner, we could avoid that.

I'm not angry with y'all, by the way.

No, no, no. There's all kinds of forms of anger, frustration, irritability, all those little things where we become a little frustrated and then we're moving. So I think people struggle with that in a lot of ways. And whether it's ending a relationship that isn't healthy, whether it's romantic or friendship, it's like, you know it, you know it, you know it, but you need them to like, make you mad to be finally like, "That's it!" Yeah, whereas we try to reconcile a lot of things. But confrontation isn't about attacking people. And in therapy, our definition of confrontation is to bring two things that don't seem to match into the presence of the other.

Such a much nicer way of saying it.

And that's really all it is. Like, this isn't lining up with this. And so—

But I think that what you're talking about, using the word confrontation, And my question initially was, like, me with other people. But I think that's why we don't do this with ourself, because it's confrontation with yourself, with two things that don't match.

Two things that don't match.

And we don't want to do it. So, we wait until we're breaking down. We wait until we're stressed out. We wait until our anxiety is through the roof. We wait until all of these things are happening before we're willing to say, "Wait a minute, things are out of alignment." This is not matching, yeah. You said when you talk about your me-cations, like, I'm gonna, I need to be alone. You know you need to be alone and you've probably learned how to preempt the heartfelt need.

I've tried. There's definitely been times when those around me would say, hey, are you going on like a me-cation soon? Is there one coming up? And I'm just like, now there is. They can see it. Yeah, for sure.

But a part of getting with yourself is knowing these things. So you're not waiting until you get to the end.

I became much more intentional, especially as I experienced the benefit more and more. I became more intentional about planning the next one, knowing when I was going to go away, but also trying and not always succeeding because life, life's— but trying not to let myself get so tired on a regular basis. Because when I first started doing them, the thing that would blow me away was what it felt like to be rested. It was almost confusing. I used to remember—

You don't know if that's what it is.

Right. I'm walking around the hotel like, man, I almost feel high. And then it took me— I was like—

What does it feel like for you to be rested? Describe it.

It just feels like energy. It feels like nothing's holding me back. It feels like a little lightness in my head, a little flutter in my chest, like, ah. And I'm thinking, man, if I— I feel like I'm a little high. And I was like, I think I'm just rested. I think, is this what it feels like to not be tired on some level? And that became a goal. And it does slip away from me often, but man, I got some great sleep last night. And I was up this morning, didn't have coffee for like 90 minutes. And I thought, man, I haven't even had Coffee.

Sleep.

Sleep is a friend. And so, yeah, just having that rest was—

is huge.

And when I do the mukations, I sleep with abandon. So I fall asleep at afternoon if I want to. I wake up whenever. I eat whenever. And I usually cry at least once on a mukation. It will come at an unexpected moment. I'll feel weepy. And when it does, I just release it. And I think it's part of the fact that we need a certain amount of safety. For our bodies to move into that space, to release the things we've been carrying. The first time it happened, I was like, "What am I crying about? What am I crying about?" But I gave that up fairly quickly. I don't think it really matters.

We don't have to have a reason to cry.

No, no. Sometimes we just have been holding things in. And what we don't realize is that the part of our nervous system that— so everybody kind of knows about the sympathetic nervous system, right? Fight, flight, freeze. But the other side of the autonomic nervous system is called the parasympathetic. And that turns off the sympathetic when we're safe and brings us back into an equilibrium. Well, that part also turns on tear ducts. So that's why we don't usually cry when we're in fight, flight, or freeze. Think about it. Like when you're mad or you're pulling out, you're not crying, you're doing stuff.

It's after the traumatic thing happened. And then you're like, ah, yeah.

When you feel safe, then the tears come because that system that comes up to bring you back in equilibrium also turns on the tears. And so I've learned that when I feel that sense of I wanna cry, it's actually my body trying to bring me back. But because we resist crying, we actually choose by resisting crying to stay in the sympathetic fight, flight, freeze that our bodies are trying to bring us back. And so I learned to stop trying to interrogate my tears all the time. Just let my body do what it was fearfully and wonderfully made to do. And sometimes after a good cry, there may be some clarity around where that came from, but it's just, we go so fast to our minds And even though emotion is becoming more accepted in a lot of ways, and we talk a lot about emotional intelligence, which I do not love that phrase.

Why don't you love that phrase?

Because it— some of the elements of it are built on things that are, one, scientifically proven no longer to be true. But also, it gives us not even just permission, but an encouragement to intellectualize our emotion. Let's think about how we feel. We start thinking about how we feel before we feel how we feel. And then we never get back around to experiencing how we felt and allowing our body to do its work. We just go straight to our heads. What is this I'm feeling? What is this name? How do I name this emotion? What do I do? And we try and get into like whatever the steps are. We haven't yet experienced the emotion, but people don't know how.

They don't know how to take me-cations.

Listen.

They don't know how—

Make a room for it.

—to be rested. That's true. They don't know how to feel the tears rise and not immediately be freaked out that I'm about to cry. Yeah. We don't know how to sit with our emotions. Mm-hmm. I agree. To not psychoanalyze them, but just to feel them.

Immediately. Yeah. We haven't learned that yet.

So if I'm sitting here and I'm watching and I'm like, I don't even know. How do I know if I'm— Right. How does someone know if I'm feeling them versus thinking about them? And how do I invite the feeling more? Than the thinking?

Sit still and check on your body. A lot of times we don't realize it, but that moment that we grab the phone to start scrolling, or that moment that we jump up to go to the kitchen, our body was just about to say something and we feel a little anxiety, we feel a little sadness, and we have got— we are gone. And so, our body is where our emotions begin. Emotions are bodily experiences. So, let's myth bust number 1. Yeah. Emotions do not come from thoughts. Thoughts do not produce feelings. That has been a longstanding belief that has now been debunked by neuroscience. And it was always not true from scripture. But emotions are bodily experiences, but we need to be still. So, one of my favorite times to check on myself and my body is when I first wake up in the morning. Most of our emotions are right on the surface when we open our eyes in the morning. I wake up, I thank you, God, I'm still alive, thank you. And then just, I go straight into my body. What's happening? Is my stomach tight? Is my chest tight? Or is my chest fluttering? I'm excited about something today. What's happening in my body? And then allow myself to go to that space. And what is it telling me I need?

I recently put that in an email to people. I put that line in there just about being still, not about this conversation, but there were 3 lines in there. I said, if you don't even know, you should just check on, ask yourself, What do I need? What is your body telling you? You know? Yeah. Leading questions to do that kind of thing. Start with the body. Because I've been listening, reading.

Yeah. Start with your body. Your emotions are bodily experience.

And someone replied. What'd they say? They were very kind.

They were— then we know some Christian advice is getting ready to come in.

No, when they come at you wrong, you just click.

Right, right. Maybe even delete.

But archive.

Something.

But no, this one was, "I enjoy reading all of your emails, and I always get so much, but as I read your email, like, I had a check in my spirit when you said that." Because nowhere in scripture does it tell us to go to ourselves for the answer. You know, "The heart is deceitful above all things." Like, there's nothing good in the flesh.

Always taken out of context. Always.

So— —so, and honestly, a part of why we keep—and by we, I mean people who are, let's just say, church people—why we keep so many things separate is because we're afraid that if we touch it, it's the wrong thing. Yeah. When many things that are good were God first anyway, right? They just had alternate meanings. But some of that stuff sounds like, you know, old school New Age. I don't know if it even sounds like new school New Age. It definitely sounds like old school New Age. Some of it sounds like energy conversations that are not correctly embedded in faith. And so, because it sounds like it, everybody starts scrambling. We go, "No, no, no, don't." Yeah, so how would you explain the heart being deceitful and the flesh being the problem? Yeah, so— From checking on your body.

Yeah, so first of all, when the Bible has in the verse that talks about the heart being deceitful, It was prophetic word being spoken to a specific group of people at that moment. It was not a, "The heart is deceitful for life and forever." And even if you want to say that it was, that's why we give our lives to Jesus. So now my heart is new. Jesus wants to live in my heart. Why would he live in this horrible place? I mean, belief begins in the heart. In the book of Luke, when the parable of the sowers is told, Jesus makes it clear that when a seed, a word, hits the soil, that's your heart. If the soil has what that seed needs for it to germinate, the word becomes a belief. So belief begins in the heart. It is related to our emotional lives. We are very emotional about our beliefs. That's why you can have all these conversations, give people all this data, and they're like, okay, yeah, I'm still getting an iPhone. Yeah. Oh yeah, I'm still getting whatever.

Because you're still sleeping.

I'm still sleeping, right, right, right, right, right.

Because now that's everywhere. Oh my gosh, you're gonna die if your phone is on. And I'm like, how many people watch I watched that as they were in their bed.

I know, I know. 'Cause you have to come into my heart to move a belief. And so, that's a misconception we have, that our emotions are somehow separated from the things we believe and that we think. And so, we have to be careful about that. When it comes to the body as the flesh being, quote unquote, "bad," but what about our bodies being the temple of the Lord? Why would he want to live there? You know, we are allowing our cultural perspective to bias our reading of scripture. We do a lot of studying about in what context culturally was this written? But we pay little attention to the context in which it's being read. What am I bringing to Scripture? Am I bringing cultural perspectives that say that emotion is bad and thought is good? Am I bringing cultural perspectives that say the body is a problem, the only reason we deal with it is to be thinner or healthier or better? We have to check that because that's not how I see Jesus living. That's not how I saw Jesus live in Scripture. Jesus was an extremely emotionally expressive guy. He was. And he was because he had a body. So, he showed us how to live this human life perfectly. We never see Jesus apologize. We don't see him apologize for his intense emotions. We see him cry in public. We see him flipping tables, whipping folks. We see him in Gethsemane having a complete meltdown. And not one single record of him repenting. Nowhere. Why didn't he hold those emotions in? Why weren't that— why weren't those displays a show of weak faith? But we say that it is. Well, if you know that God is gonna handle it, then you don't need to be— you don't have to cry 'cause you know the outcome. Well, he knew he was gonna raise Lazarus, but he cried right there in public anyway. Why would he allow this pain to be expressed in his body? Why did he speak how he felt? He says to the disciples in Gethsemane, "I'm so sad, I feel like I could die. Come and be with me." He's expressing a need. Jesus knew all of these needs because he had a human body. That's why he was able to feel everything that we felt, yet never sinned. And so, Jesus was very connected to his body. Hebrews 4:15, for those running to their Bible, "We have not a high priest who cannot—" 'Cause somebody's running.

'Cause somebody's running.

Somebody's running. "We have not a high priest who cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmities." Yeah. "He was tempted in every way, yet without sin." So, that means no feeling can be a sin. No emotion can be a sin. But when we see in Gethsemane, the disciples, They are not in touch with what's going on with their emotions. They don't stay with it. They fall asleep. In the book of Luke, it says, "He come— came and found them sleeping for sorrow." We always hear people talk about that, "Oh, they fell asleep on him. You know, they weren't there for him." It says they were sleeping for sorrow. They were emotionally overwhelmed. And sleep was a way to avoid the feeling. And then what happens? He said, "Watch and pray, lest you be enter— lest you enter into temptation." They didn't watch. There was— watch means to be aware of where you are and what's happening. They were not in touch with where they were. Where they were emotionally. And when they woke up, they fell into temptation. They scattered. Peter cut somebody's ear off. Everybody's acting a whole crazy. Jesus stayed present with his emotional pain. He watched and prayed. He brought it to God completely raw. And he was strengthened in that space. He allowed his body to express and experience all of that. That sweating blood, that was an emotional pain expression. And then he stands up. And confronts maybe the most difficult moment of his human life in power. Always after Jesus allowed these emotional experiences to be expressed and flow through his body, we see a display of spiritual power come right behind it. Mm-hmm. And so, there is a connection between our emotional lives and our spiritual lives that cannot be broken. But by avoiding our emotions, we undermine our spiritual wellness. And so, what happened to the disciples? They avoided their emotions and acted ridiculous. We need to get in there. So, I know I probably went to a different direction.

No, no, no. This is great. But our bodies, and our bodies though, our bodies are so special to God.

I mean, the description of our creation.

You mean, even if I got some Oompa Loompas?

Even with some Oompa Loompas, even as I Spanx this body, this temple, to hold it upright, it is so divinely created by God. I mean, he loves our bodies. There's a whole theme. If you look at scripture, our bodies are basically created by hand. When God recaps creation in chapter 2 of Genesis, it goes back to the creation of the body again. He doesn't recap the creation of animals or anything. Plants and people.

That's the recap.

And then when humans fall, it says that Jesus went as a seed in the body of a woman. So that means that Jesus's bodily genetic material was tucked into Eve's body. Before they ever left and rode in a body to a body. Because little side note, I think some people know this, but when women are born, they have all the eggs in their ovary they'll ever have. We don't develop them through our life, every single thing. So, when my mom was in her mom's womb, I was in her. And when I was in my mom, in her mom's womb, she was in her mom's womb. And so, in order for Jesus's genetic material to travel, it had to have—

That was like an Inception moment. Listen. Somebody was like, "Wait." What? "I was in my mom, and my mom was in her mom." That's crazy.

Everyone. And so, in order for Jesus to be a seed of a woman, he had to travel down in a body all that way. Then he put on a body, then he let them tear up a body, then he got a new body. That body is a big deal to God. It's not over until we have our resurrected incorruptible bodies at the end of the Bible. It's not over until our bodies are back. So, your body matters, and we should treat it better.

You— when you talk about the separation emotionally. I know that this beautiful, amazing book is all about not doing that.

It is.

It is about not doing that, which meant that you had to write about not doing that. I did. Which meant that you probably, if writing books is usually what I think it is.

Well, you've done a few, so you know.

Yeah, well, then you have to, work through where even if you are a doctor—

honey, this book was born from experience— Dr.

Anita Phillips, who had the information. Yeah. Who have— who has the education, who has done the counseling, who has taught the word. When it came down to say, okay, now, but this is— yeah, how you do it, it probably took you to a couple of corners.

Oh, for sure. For sure. Let me tell you, um, I thought it would take me 6 months to write this book. It took 2 years. Um, there were many tears shed, sometimes with laughter, because I'm like, I'm writing a book about emotional well-being and I could not be more feeling more emotionally distressed at this moment. I have definitely lived out everything in there. And the, the painful thing is it's not that you can't— that you shouldn't separate your emotions from your feeling— from your thoughts is that you can't. You've deceived yourself into thinking you can, but you can't because you're— that's like saying, I'm going to separate my circulatory system from my respiratory system. I want them separate. You can't. You're going to die if one of them is taken out. You're not going to make it. So there is no separation between them. There's only a disconnection from my body so that I don't feel. That's the only thing you can do is try and mentally disconnect. But that's not healthy. And I had to remind myself of that. Many times because— How does that happen?

How does that happen when you have all the information, when you are the— I know I'm just really building you up here. No, no, no. When you are the Dr. Anita, and you know all the things, and you take me-cations, and you wait until you're rested, and you wait until you feel light and energetic, and then you sit down to write a book.

I still had to live my life. And so, life is coming at you. And so much happened during the time that I was writing this book. We stopped pastoring, we moved, our children empty nested, um, the tumor was found on my parathyroid gland. I had to have surgery for the first time. And on top of all the things that were going on, and the book— writing the book was terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying. Why? Because I am a little strange, and my brain works a little different. And God gave me this, revelation. And it's like one thing for me to share with my friends and even my clients, but like, I was like, people are gonna be like, this girl is crazy. She's crazy. She's talking about plants and neurons and what's going on. And so it felt like risky, you know, because it was so special to me, but also it was scary, scary that I wouldn't be able to do it well, that I wouldn't be able to write it well. You know, I have only written like academic, like academic stuff. So finding a voice that would be true to all the parts of me at once, it was just terrifying. It triggered a lot of old trauma perfectionism stuff that I felt like I had gotten past, and then those weeds started growing again. And ooh, good God, child, it was a ride. It was a ride. But I was committed to it.

I was committed to it. Let me ask this, because I love how you said Things that, you know, I thought I kind of thought we were graduated from. Graduated from. Good. Yeah. Um, so now that you had to go back to class for some of those things and then write about them, do you now feel like you graduated? What does that mean? What does that mean?

I actually got some fresh understanding as I wrote this book. Revelation that continued to unfold, which was so incredible. There are things in this book that I didn't know when I started. And tell you, yes. Yeah, God was just walking me right through it. And so, for instance, one of the things I learned was about weeds. So, in the parable of the sower, thorny ground, the seeds fall into the soil, the soil's fertile, it's got enough faith, it's got enough hope, it's got some love in it, it's ready to go. And then, these weeds pop up, these thorns, and choke the fruit that was coming from the good word. And I started studying weeds in a way that I haven't before, 'cause that's really what they are, they're weeds. And I found out that weeds tell a story about the soil. They grow when the soil is deficient in some nutrient. Weeds will start to grow. So they are an indicator. Whatever is growing in soil will tell you something about the soil. And so when weeds start growing, it usually indicates that a deficiency has arisen. And so when weeds grow, they drop new seeds on the ground. And so those seeds can be dormant in the soil. For as long as 40 years. So out here in your garden, you could have not seen a weed in 20 years. But if there's a shift— That creates a deficiency. That creates some kind of deficiency in the soil, those weed seeds will wake up.

So it's not about graduating. It's about paying attention to the deficiencies.

It's about paying attention to the deficiencies. What do you need? And that's the challenge, because you can pull the weeds currently, which we do, right? We take all those thoughts into captivity. Behavioral therapy. Yeah, behavior. We stop the— we pick the fruit, we pluck the the plants, which are our— is our mind, our thoughts. We take those into captivity, and then we're like, "I'm good." But down in the soil, that's where we have to go, into the heart. Jesus said the soil was our heart, and our bodies are made from that same soil. There were some weed seeds that have been dormant for so long. But I had not been under that kind of threat emotionally in a long time. And fear Fear drains love out of the soil. And so it makes the climate really good for weeds to grow.

That sounds like a question to ask too. Mm-hmm. I think half the battle in learning about the deficiencies in our soil is knowing how to test it. Yeah. Which for us is asking questions. And many of us don't know how to ask ourselves questions.

Back to the body. Back to the body. What am I feeling? What is my body doing? Sometimes when we're sad, it's heavy around our chest. There's a heaviness there. Sometimes when we're anxious, our guts kind of— back to the body. What is happening in here? And if that feels like fear, fear says, I'm not safe. I need safety. Sadness says, I'm disconnected. There's a distance between me and someone or someplace or something that I love. That could be my image of myself. It could be someone who passed away. It could be the business that closed. But there's been a disconnection between me and something valuable. And that's what sadness is. And I feel that. My arms are heavy. My legs are heavy. I feel that. I need connection.

Can men do this? Absolutely.

There's a man illustration in there. But let me say this about anger. Anger says that I need to be valued, or my worth and respect need to be shown. And so, when we realize we need those things, then we can start dealing with it. So, deficiency means that I have a need that's unmet. And that's like saying, "I'm hungry." Nobody says that I shouldn't listen to my body when I'm hungry. Nobody says, "There's no good thing in your flesh. Ignore that hunger. Don't eat." What is that?

Get something to eat, baby. You're gonna hate eating.

That's what they say. Emotions are bodily experiences. And so something in my body is saying it needs something. I'm hungry for connection. I'm hungry for my worth, my value. I'm hungry for safety. And then when I realize that, I can make decisions about getting those needs met in a good way.

Checking in on you. Do you even know how to do that? Listen, sometimes, y'all, it's the simplest things. It just takes someone to say it and we're like, oh yeah, I guess I should spend 60 seconds, 120 seconds learning to breathe and just paying attention to what my body is telling me. But do you know why we often don't do that? Because we don't make time. We don't Make room. And I'm so glad that it's just 60 seconds and it's just 120, because that's not a lot of time. It, it does— it doesn't require a lot of space in your life to do it. But here's what I know. I know that when you make the decision to create the space, to create the room in your life, to let the thoughts rise to the top, to let the emotions rise to the top, to really sense not only what your body is telling you but what what God is telling you, what the Spirit of God is communicating to the depths of your soul, you will receive an extra level, an extra dollop. It's like when I go get a hot fudge sundae, give me an extra dollop of whipped cream, please. Extra nuts. You get extra because you gave a little extra. And I want to make sure that if you are in a season where extra is what you have to give, that you know about an opportunity to make room. I'm going away to in 2023, this October, just a few short weeks from now, to get together with a bunch of women who love Jesus, but also realize that they need to make some space to hear the rhythm of their own heartbeat, to hear what God may be trying to say above the noise, and to also make connections with people that are not interrupted by the normal routines and rhythms in life. And like I said, I know that Even though we were talking, everybody may not have 15 minutes, you may not have 10, but you got 60. If you're in a season of life right now where you're like, I got 60, I got 120, I've got a few days, Chrystal Hurst, and I'd love to come away with you. I want you to know you're invited to join me because I need it. And I'm excited to have that opportunity this year. And I wanted to share that opportunity with some of you. So if you can join me, join me. For more information, simply go to thesistercircle.com/retreat. All right, y'all, let's get back to talking about our bodies. First of all, could I just say this? This book smells amazing.

Nothing like a new book. Do you know about this? Nothing like a new book. And I love the paper. It's like that kind of—

I can't be careful because it's like your one copy. Yeah, I can't. It smells great. I opened it up to this page that I wanted to read and I was just met with book smell.

Ah, it's like a new car smell. New about.

Okay, you talk about in chapter 4 meeting with a coworker and talking about accountability and this whole idea of, um, you say here, accountability— this, these are your words— accountability isn't really my thing. I'm a great cheerleader. And then you state, accountability can be useful, but sometimes we use it inappropriately, as if the threat of being embarrassed for not having accomplished a goal on time will force us to achieve. Now, I'm a goal person. You say later, "This is the typical approach to achieving goals. We wish them, we list them, and then we hop into Plato's chariot, determined to put mind over matter to accomplish these goals by any means necessary." Any means except getting in touch with the frustration, sadness, or fear that derailed us the last time. Goals should not be gathered, they should be grown.

How'd you feel about that? How were you impacted by those words?

Well, that's the question I want to ask you. Two podcasters, when they get together, this is what happens. You can't help yourself. Just saying. I was look— I read this and I thought, does that mean— I know it doesn't, but I was going to say, does that mean you don't set goals? What does it mean to grow them?

To grow them means that I am first taking care of the soil. Is the soil fertile for what I wanna do? Mm-hmm. Is my emotional wellbeing intact? Because how many times have we ourselves done this or seen someone else do this? We achieve the goal, but don't feel like we wanted to feel. We have all the goals, but none of the joy. Things are achieved. We see someone who has seemed to achieve every goal that we want, and we're looking at them, and then we find out they have depression or die by suicide. It's like, what happened? You achieved the goals. And so, What we're really saying is you did the thing, so how come you don't feel good? Because we believe that we think, do, and feel, but we feel, think, do. And so no matter how you're conceptualizing how a car works, it don't change how it actually works. So I'm telling you, you might think that you're thinking, doing, and then feeling, or thinking, feeling, but you are feeling, then thinking, then doing. That is how you were designed, and that is how we're working. And so that's why we can achieve all these goals and still not be emotionally well. And so what we hoped to how we hope to feel, we don't feel. And that's very disappointing. Well, so I think that's a challenge.

But here's— okay, so the movie Inside Out, right?

Yes. Okay.

I love that movie. So was her name Sadness? Was her name Sadness?

It was Sadness. It was Joy. The one that just kept melting on the floor.

Yeah. I can't, I just can't go on. So the picture that many of us have is that feeling gets in the way of growing goals.

We do know, but we think that, but feeling gets in the way sometimes of gathering goals. But if we would stop and experience our feelings, hear what we need, meet the need, the soil will be better. The soil will be more well. And then when we grow this thing over time, because we love to try and get 100,000 things done in 90 days. In 90 days. And things don't grow that fast. And then when we're overwhelmed and then we're snapping at people, or then we're anxious, depressed, over— because we think that we're supposed to just produce. That's the only thing that matters. But how well you are matters. Your children need you to be well. Your spouse, your friends, your body. You need to be well. When we leave these emotional pain threads and specifically the pain, because we all love the regular joy emotions, right? Right, right. But when we allow emotional pain to remain unaddressed, and that sympathetic nervous system is running hot below the surface, it's raising blood pressure. It's releasing extra blood sugar. And so you're doing all the right things for your diabetes, but your blood sugar not coming down. You're taking your blood pressure meds, but they're not coming down. Your migraines are increasing. Your lower back pain is increasing. Your sleep is decreasing. You are not well. Cancers are associated with anger. I mean, these things matter. So yeah, you got the business started. Yeah, you earned enough money for the new car. Yeah, you bought the house. But you're sick and you're not joyful. And so, I don't think that that's truly the goal.

It's not.

'Cause a lot of times we're doing it, we don't, we're not honest with ourselves. Like, I'm doing this and I, and part of the goal is how you think you'll feel when it's done. Right. And then when that's absent, people are confused. I want you to grow things because when you grow it over time from fertile ground, you will grow a life that's sustainable. But when you just run past that and try to gather all the things in, and then you're overwhelmed, you've built something that's not sustainable. The ground's ready to collapse underneath.

We are— and I say we, and by we, I mean there's a whole group of women that for whatever reason, whether she had to be the breadwinner, she was a single mom, or she's experienced trauma in her life, we— are living and we're in survival mode. All the time.

All the time.

And honestly, sometimes can't see how exiting survival mode is possible. Yeah. And I'm thinking about the person who's watching this, the woman who's watching this and thinking, "Yeah, as soon as I wake up, I've got a baby on a tit that's nursing," or, "I'm waking up and I'm waking up so early already, trying my best to get everybody dressed into school." "Or I just picked up the third job because I'm struggling to make ends meet." Or, "I hear what you're saying, but maybe it's the person I'm sleeping next to that constantly, just their presence gives me a sense of—" Like, that there are circumstances— Which is an important conversation.

It's an important conversation. That's the next big up.

Mm-hmm. But the things that are around me that I seemingly don't have a lot of control over, me-cation isn't on my to-do list. I get it. It's not something that I can do. I hear you, but I don't know how I'm going to get up any earlier to have that 15 minutes or 5 minutes to check in. So for the woman who's going, I get it, I understand it, I don't see how I do that. Yeah. How am I growing, tending to my garden when it's been 105 degrees outside? Listen. In Texas. I mean, I literally legit looked at my husband last week ready to be mad. I was ready to be mad. The heat is abusive. I'm looking at some plants I just put in, and they looking tan. They supposed to be green. And my statement to him was, because I was being nice, I was like, so how many times did you water the plants this week? Because the assumption I was making is that you didn't, right? And he said 3 times. And even with 3 times, they were not getting what they needed, or they were getting too much of something that they didn't need. So I'm thinking about the person who's sitting here going, I hear what you're saying, But it's 105 degrees in my life. And I'm watering. "Water, Water, Water" is the title of one of your chapters. I'm watering. I'm doing all these things. Yeah. And I am still not living life. Yeah. How— give me my option. Give me— how do I do this in the cracks and crevices of my life?

Yeah. Well, first, I love that you said we're trying to control all these different things, and some of them we can't control. And so, there's a few things I'd like to say here, but I'll try and get a couple in. With our emotional lives, I would like us to move from that sense of control to that sense of power. And that doesn't mean not feeling, but that as we learn, and the book goes deeply into this, that emotions are bodily experiences. We can engage our body in a way that shifts our emotional experience internally, even though we are unable to control certain things externally. Give me an example. So, for example, um, that first thing, wake up in the morning, check on my body. I think everyone can do that. 100%. 60 seconds. Okay. If you are listening right now, after you get off this podcast, just set your phone clock for 60 seconds on the timer and just sit there for the whole 60 seconds. I guarantee you it's gonna feel long. It's gonna feel long because we are never still. Yeah. But you realize that 60 seconds is not long. So in 60 seconds you can literally do that check. Okay. It might only take 30. Okay. I want people to start play with the timer. It's gonna shock people how long 60 seconds is in this life that we lead. Mm-hmm. And check on that. Where's my body? What is it that my body is telling me that I need? If there's anxiety, it usually means I don't feel safe in some way. I'm concerned about this, I'm concerned about that. How can I increase my sense of safety? You can do some breathing exercises right there that will help to bring your nervous system into a different state. Breathe in for 4, breathe out for 8. Do that for 60 seconds. So now we did 120 seconds. Everybody's got 120 seconds. You know how I know? Because we all been on our phone for longer than that. That's correct. So we all got 120 seconds. They're watching this podcast, right? Right. You're watching this podcast right now. Watching this. So breathe in for 4, out for 8, or in for 3, out for 6. The key is that you breathe in half the time that you breathe out. So exhale for twice as long as you breathe in. This will literally wake up your parasympathetic nervous system, which will start to shift your body into a state of peace. You don't have to— Yeah. I wish we— I would do it right now, but I don't wanna burn up time that I could share stuff with you. But absolutely, breathe in through your nose. Close, hold it for a minute, a second, and then in for 3, out for 6, in for 4, out for 8. That double long exhale. You can feel it. You can feel it already. Starts to shift your parasympathetic nervous system. There's literally a nerve in the center of your body called, we call it the vagus nerve. But when God built it in there on creation day, it looks like a tree. There's literally a tree in the center of the garden that you are. Our bodies are mapped trapped like Eden. And when you wake that tree, it starts to bring you back down. And so, just those breathing exercises can start us off better. Then being honest about what I need. So, if I need to feel safe, I'm driving down the street, I might call a friend. We can still do phone calls, people. We don't only have to text. I might call a good friend and just be like, "Girl, I am nervous today." My friends, let me tell you, Sarah, Celeste, Tangela, I say your names. This book is also yours because— of the number of tears that they sat with me and let me cry. The times that I called and said, "This is insane and I'm gonna be embarrassed," and they're just like, "Girl, you are not. It's gonna be okay." And just their confidence helping to make me feel safe again. But I needed to feel safe. And instead of giving myself a hard time about not feeling safe, I got the need met. You know what I mean? And we— that's our problem. We don't wanna need, and then we don't wanna get our needs met when we do, 'cause we don't wanna need. But after the Bible says that we have not a high priest who cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmity, and he wrote Hebrews 4:15. In Hebrews 4:16, it says, "Come boldly before the throne of grace in my time of need." But we don't like to need. He has all this experience with our feelings so that when we have a need, we can come to him with ours. And so, we come to him for a solution. "Lord, help me to not be afraid," instead of just saying, "I need to feel safe in your presence. I need connection to you. I feel disconnected from everything. Connect me." We don't bring the need, we bring what we think will solve our problem, and we ask for that instead of just bringing the need. "God, I don't have— there's no one in my life that when I'm with them, I feel a sense of worth or value. Like, God, please meet this need and bring me into relationships that do this for me so that I have people." We don't ask for that. We ask God to make us stronger, make us better, give us the rent money, you know, whatever. We don't go with the need. And that's what Jesus did in Gethsemane. He went with his need, you know, and he got met. And so we have 120 seconds to notice our bodies, to be honest about what we need. If you're sad, connection, angry, value, boundaries. Boundaries are a lot often the answer for anger. Fear, I need safety. We can breathe. At the end of your shower, turn the water cold for the last 30 seconds. What? Cool water, as cold as you can stand it without it getting upset. Right. Bring the cool temperature down. That awakens the vagus nerve. So when you're in the shower, cool the water at the end. That will awaken that vagus nerve. And that's why when we slide into a pool, we're like, "Fuck!" Do it in the shower. Give me 30 seconds of cool water, maybe 60 seconds if you have a 60, and let that cool water run over you. Sound awakens that tree. So just be in the shower like, "And I'm waking the tree because I'm gonna kill somebody." Just give me the sound. It doesn't have to be anything. It can be worship. It can be that. That, that awakens it as well. So there are ways to shift our body, and I go into that in the book, where we are able to alter our internal experience, even when we can't alter our external experience. And when our emotional space is different, it waters different thoughts. Mm-hmm. Scientifically proven. When we are angry, we, we solve problems faster, but less accurately. Mm-hmm. It affects our thinking. When we are joyful, we solve problems a little slower, but more accurately. When we are sad, we have a hard time thinking of options. When we're afraid, we actually become creative with options in our thoughts, but as soon as the problem is solved, we get really tired and collapse. So, how we're doing emotionally shapes our thoughts, just like the water in the soil goes into the plant and shapes the plant. And when a plant is wilting, it's because there's not enough water in it. Right. And when my mind is heavy and my mind is tired, water. It goes back to the heart. But where do we put the water? When a plant is wilting, where do we put the water? We don't spray it on the plant. Mm-mm. We pour it in the soil. If a plant needs nutrients, where do we put the nutrients? In the soil. I need you people listening to believe, not me, but the Creator. God created us in the pattern of plants. And we have missed it because culturally we've been so focused on the mind. But he gave us seeds, that's the beliefs that are within us, soil, our emotional life, The plant that springs up then becomes our thoughts, and the fruit is what we do. We've never had a problem with recognizing fruit as what we do. Seeds is the belief of the word. But we haven't understood where that mind is. But the first time God showed me a neuron, and I realized that that neuron looked exactly like a plant, that's how this all started. I believed that the Creator did something on purpose. Because if I really believe in the God of my Sunday school stories, how does he make a neuron, which is the building block of my mind biologically, look like a plant? By accident. I mean, really. And I stared at that for a long time. I was a grad student. And I'm like, "That neuron looks like a daggone plant." Not only does it look like a plant to me, but neuroscientists named the parts of the neuron after plants. Like, long story, but they named everything after plants. The dendrites are— that's the Latin word for branches. That's the top of the neuron. Everything, they saw it. It's seen. And Romans 1:20 says, "That which may be clearly seen, is clearly— I'm sorry, "That which may be known of God is clearly seen, being understood by the things he made." And so, when I saw that, I'm like, "This is clearly seen. Why would God make my neurons and my nervous system look like plants and trees, unless he was trying to teach me something about his intention for how he made me?" And then have Jesus come and say, "The soil is your heart," and talk about the different soil types in terms of emotion. It's right on the page. It's so simple. We've been missing it. So, I'm asking you to not just believe me, not just believe the most current science, but believe your Bible. Your emotions are so important to God. He sows his words on your heart, not your mind. Jesus lives in your heart, not your mind. I mean, there's only one place in scripture where Jesus says anything about the mind. And that's when he says how to love God. Love God with all your— but first he says heart. That's right. Mind always comes after heart. Body. I think I put this in the book as well. So, do a search of your Bible, King James Version, with— for scriptures that have the word "heart" and "mind" in them, together. The word "heart" will always come first. Mm. Look for verses that have the word "heart" and "spirit" in them. Heart always comes first. Every single time it's ordered. Proverbs 15:13, "By sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken." It's telling you right there that your spirit, the health of your spirit, even depends on where your emotional well-being is. That's huge. Because when sorrow breaks our spirit, and we know what that means, when we're like, sir, right, we're not even going to talk about this topic. You got a whole area where you and God don't even talk about that stuff. That's the broken stuff. That's the broken spirit stuff. But we don't— we try to prepare the spirit, you know, we go to church a little more, we fast or pray or do something. We're trying to repair our broken spirit. But if the heart broke it in the first place, wouldn't you repair the heart first? So that it won't keep breaking you in the spirit. That's how powerful it is. But we haven't looked at these things in scripture because culturally we've been biased. We just want those 3 mind scriptures that Paul wrote, you know. He's like, Paul said renew the mind. Paul said, you know, this might— but Paul also said that sometimes his mind was taken captive by his own body. Yeah. And that even when that happened, he said that there was therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Go Read Romans 7:14 through the end of chapter 8 and see Paul say, "Sometimes my mind don't be working right, but even when it doesn't, I'm not condemned, 'cause the heart." So, I hope the answer was in there somewhere. You got 120 seconds. I got more.

I was just breathing deeply the whole time.

And just coming right on down. It's amazing though. Go outside. Green, the color green in nature has a biological effect. It's calming. Go stare at a tree. Go stare at a plant. It has a calming effect on us to see it. Ocean, as we were talking about earlier, being near the ocean, the sound of the ocean actually brings our body into a calm. Sometimes I put it on my screensaver on my computer when I'm working and I just hear the ocean in my room, even though I'm not at the ocean. It still affects me because biologically that sound brings our nervous system into a calmer state. So you can shift your body, but first you have to believe that that's where it is.

You and I said someone sleeping next to someone they don't feel safe to. I, I, a safe— and I don't mean when I say that, I don't mean physical safety. I know. Okay. Um, I want to put that out there. Yes. I just want to say we're not talking about that at this juncture. But I think that that's super important because you spend the majority of your home time, you can spend it with a person that you've committed life to. That maybe because they've trampled on your feelings or minimized your feelings or, you know, don't want to listen to your feelings, all those kinds of things. Or they're emotionally abusive. Or they're emotionally abusive.

Because that's sometimes harder to put your finger on. It is. And easier to explain away as Christians, especially. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. I want women to pay attention to this. Yes. Because your body is telling you something true. Mm. And I can't tell you how many women have told me stories of whether it was when they were dating this person, even when they were getting ready to get married, and there was something in their body and they wrote it off as nerves, or they wrote it off as, "Well, just trauma from my past," or, "It's just fear." It's not just, just. Your body is trying to give you some information that there's a need here that's not being met. This is not safe space for me. I recently counseled a young woman who ultimately did choose to get divorced, but she was so— her body became so ill Over the time that she was seeing this person, then married to this person, within a year of marrying him, young woman in her 20s, she had developed PCOS. And that is very much associated with stress. I'm not saying every case of PCOS stress. PCOS is stress, but there's a big overlap. And so now her fertility is being compromised. And I'm just like, when did you start not feeling well? And we tracked it backwards and she was able to track it back all the way to shortly after she started dating this person. But she wrote it off to every other thing because we've been taught that our body is not giving us important information. But it is, and especially women. We have a certain sensitivity that we have been taught to ignore. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It's the power of intuition. It is.

And that is real. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Why don't we believe that? How can we be fearfully and wonderfully made and also our bodies are useless, noisy, emotional liars? How do those two things match? And every single person's body is constructed after the pattern of creation, whether they know Jesus or not. And back to what you said about the New Age thing, that's why we as Christians miss a lot of stuff where other people who don't necessarily follow Jesus or follow scripture are discovering the miraculous things that our bodies can do, and then they name it something, and you think because they found it first and named it, now we can never touch it. This is not who planted the flag first. Yeah, I— so they named it, they are actually observing the incredible things that God has made, and we are not. That's a crazy loss. Breathing, breathwork has been around for a long time. Yeah. But it's like, "Oh, that's that new age breathwork." Honey, it's breathing. It's lungs.

Like, he breathed the breath of life into us. And the way your body is wired.

The way your body was divinely created.

So, what do I do if I don't feel safe?

Mm-hmm.

Because you mentioned that a part of, even with writing the book, calling names of friends, you're like, "You're helping me to be able to identify what it is and giving me feedback to help me correct." Mm-hmm.

Um, sometimes they're correcting, sometimes they're just being there for me.

So if I don't have a safe space. Yeah. Or where I should be safe at home. Mm-hmm. Is also inhabited by someone who does not make me feel safe. Yeah. What does that person do?

I think, well, the first thing is to be honest about that. Okay. Because sometimes we're not, because it's like, if I, there's a back of our brain that's like, if I admit this, then what do I do with that reality?

Then what do I do?

Right. Right. With that reality. But it's not gonna go away. So, I think, one, it's important to admit it, and then to start to examine your own insides. Why not? What is it? You know, start to observe, when does my body feel like this most? When is it calmer? 'Cause it may not be every single second, unless you're in an emotionally abusive situation, and then it could be. But it could be in certain moments. And you— therapy, I encourage you. But start maybe just journaling and noticing.

Like, "Okay, when that happened, it impacted me that way." So, that means I have to write and then I have to read?

You may have to write it down. You may have to read, talk to friends, be honest with someone. I hope you have a safe person, but if not, that's one of the great things about therapy is that person is entirely there for you to just say this: I believe that God cares about our feelings very much. And we have been taught that that's not true. "God doesn't care how you feel. You just go ahead and push forward with your faith." But God does care about our hearts. And so, I believe that as we open ourselves up to that, he will guide us. You may find that there's conversations that need to be had with that person. You may find that there's some work you can do in therapy that may reduce the intensity. I don't like to say that if you survived a childhood trauma or it's bringing something back from childhood, that that automatically means it's not true that you're not safe. A lot of times, we're like, "Well, my trauma—" Listen. Trust your body. It may be giving you bigger information or more intense response. And I don't like to say reaction, but response. Yes. Because of something that you've been through. But that doesn't mean you're wrong. That doesn't mean I don't smell it. That don't mean the scent is not in the room. It might— I might be having a stronger reaction to it because I'm reacting to past stuff and present stuff that I haven't processed. But that doesn't mean there's not something here. And I need women to trust that. I need men to trust that because we'll write it off. Well, that's just my childhood thing. Okay, well, maybe I'm sensitive to this because it is my childhood thing and I know that smell. Daggit, I know that smell. So I want people to trust themselves in that way and begin to do that work. But being good to your body is one of the ways that you can help increase your own sense of safety. Nutrition. I know this is one we love.

It's chemicals.

There's so— it's all chemicals. It's all chemicals. It's all chemicals. So when we eat well, our gut is well, that helps us emotionally. 90% of the serotonin in your body is made in your gut, not in your brain. 90% of it's produced here. And that tree I talked about pulls it up like roots out of the ground, up into the brain. So we have to take care of our bodies as well. Drink water, get sleep, eat food. Those are 3 important emotional interventions. Yeah. Because when we're tired, hungry, and, and, um, sleepy, when we're tired, hungry, and what was the other? And thirsty, dehydrated, it's harder for our bodies to regulate itself because emotions are bodily experiences. And we can also, there's another biology thing I wanted to give you. It'll come back to me, but nutrition, sleep, water, big ones. And therapy. And therapy. Talk to people, talk to people. It's about having that safe space. But when you get into this emotional thing, get your hands in that soil. There's a powerful life to be grown there. It really is. But it's scary because emotions are powerful and we know that. That's why we don't want to get close to them. But plug in, plug into how you were created. The system runs the way that God made it and it was made to run as a garden. We are actually gardens. And when we see that, it gives us patience for seasons, patience for producing new fruit, and love for our own heart. Our hearts. Like when that plant in your outside that keeps succumbing to the heat, you didn't get mad at the plant and you didn't get mad at the soil. You weren't frustrated. Yeah, at the soil though, you're like—

No, just frustrated. Right, sure.

But we get frustrated with ourselves. Oh, why am I feeling like this? Why am I feeling— You know, you're not like soil, how dare you get dry? Soil, how dare you? We know it just needs something. So, we're trying to give it what it needs. You need something. And that's okay. You need your connection. You need value. You need safety. You need relationships that are safe. You need love. You need hope. It's okay to need that. And it's not a once and for all, just like soil's not a once and for all. Mm-hmm. Just like food is not a once and for all. You will be hungry again tomorrow and nobody gets mad about that. Yeah. But emotions are bodily experiences saying, I also need these things to be healthy. And it's true. And so we keep on making sure that we have a system of getting those needs met instead of ignoring them until we freak out and then blaming the emotion for the freak out. That's what— someone asked me this yesterday, well, how about with anger when you blow up on somebody? What's healthy about that? And I'm like, well, it's because you didn't deal with it along the way. That's why you don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry. That is correct. Because you know you're gonna—

because you're gonna go to Whole Foods and leave and go to McDonald's and go to McDonald's because you let the need build up.

Yes. It's the same thing emotionally. When you let the need build up until it breaks through, that's not saying that emotions are reactionary problems, saying that you waited too long to eat. Mm. Eat sooner.

So, what does it look like for you to eat? I know that you're checking on your body.

Yeah, and then identifying what you need, and working to get your needs met in a healthy way. And so, instead of waiting until you break down and call him at 2:00 AM, Maybe talk to your good friend about the fact that you're feeling a little lonely today instead of waiting for 3 weeks and then calling him at 2:00 AM. You know, not you, but you know what I mean. Right. The sisters in the situationships and the things that we do. Every day, how did I water myself today? What did I do to improve the condition of my soil today? I need a hug. Did I hug my, one of my kids today? Did I hug a friend? Um, did I go for a walk? Did I read a book? Did I watch something funny? What did I do to touch my own heart, my own emotional space today? Did I cry when I needed to? Yeah. Did I get frustrated and throw that pillow on the floor and get that energy outta my body? How do we just consistently take care of ourselves emotionally? Um, so that we don't find ourselves deep in need in a way that is, um, dangerous to us.

I think one of the most beautiful things about chatting with you today and the past when we've talked and late night texts and looking at this book and as I've gone through it, I love how tangible and accessible everything is, right? Yeah. But I think the most beautiful thing is to watch you light up.

Aww, thanks.

Mainly because, I mean, we can have a great conversation, but something in you very clearly turns on. Like, it's like you're extremely passionate about it. You want everybody to get it. I do.

I want people to know.

Which makes me think back to what you were saying about us being built like plants, that when we have what we need, that we bear fruit. And a part of the fruit, when we bear it, makes everybody else go, "Look at that." Oh, that means a lot to me.

You know, look at that.

That means a lot to me. Just the passion in and of itself for the material, for the information, for the education, but also for the transformation that you know is there for the taking for other people if they're willing to do the work and if they're willing to understand, if they're willing to engage, all of that. Take the leap. All of that. It makes me, I mean, even if we're somebody who's, and I know that there are people who are like, I'm not a reader. Okay, well get the book. Or did you read it?

Or you didn't read it? I did. So yes, I read it for the audiobook. Yes. So I did read it. So you can listen to me.

So, you know, podcasters have a hard time not reading. Yeah. I'm used to my books.

If you're used to my voice, I cannot read my books. Right. And I told him, I was like, that's not possible. Yeah. People would be like, what, what's happening? Yeah. I loved being able to do that and give that extra, like, yeah. What I really meant when I wrote this.

So you can read it, you can listen. Let's listen to it. But you should digest it because if by nothing else, you're looking at her and you're looking at how alive she is by the knowledge that she's gained, not only here, but also here firsthand. First here. And you're like, "I actually like that. I see something and I'm attracted to that." Well, maybe you have something that can be attractive to other people too, if you would cultivate it. And if you don't know how to cultivate it, well then, The Garden Within. Therapy. The Garden Within, where the war with your emotions ends and your most powerful life begins. Yeah. Here we go. It's wonderful to watch you walk in all of your— in all of the purpose, you know.

Thank you. I'm trying not to cry. I'm tearing up a little bit.

But you've been doing it. It's just— This is just a culminating—

But this means so much to me because you can only get to so many people— Right. —in a conference or even with the podcast. And then in the podcast, you can only say so much, you know? So this means a lot to me to, like, get this out. And I was thinking— I'm gonna say this, not that I have a problem with crying, but I'm trying to— you know, my makeup is on. I was— in the moments that it was hardest to write this, in the moments when I was crying, in the moments when my pain was high, my fear was high, I thought of every person who would read this book, and I'm riding through this because I want them to know they can too, that the pain does come, but it passes. It comes, but it passes. Sometimes we feel like if we start crying, we'll never stop, but we will. You will. Yeah, 20 minutes, 25, we will. Biologically, we will. That the pain, if we release it, it will overwhelm us. But just like Jesus released his, there's usually power on the other side. And so, um, I, yeah, I, I thought of each of them. I thought of each of you. I thought of each of you. Mm-hmm. Um, that it would be worth it.

And it is. It already is.

It already is. It already is. So thank you. Oh, thank you. Thanks for joining me. I love you. I missed you. I know. We're overdue for a few things. We are, we are, we are.

I had to wait till the book comes out and probably a few weeks after that for me to turn 50.

Yeah, that too. That too. That's exciting.

What a way to— I'm ready.

Yes.

To mark that moment. It is. Well, y'all, Dr. Anita, if you didn't know, now you know. Glory, glory. Go get the book. Check her out. Go to her website, thegardenwithinbook.com. It's wherever a book is sold. But you are worth cultivation. Yes. And if you needed somebody to tell you that, well, that's what we did today. You're worth it.