How To Rebuild Your Life When You Didn't Sign Up For This

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hello there. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm Dr. Zoe, your host, and I'm so glad that you're here today. Today we are talking with Dawn Sanders, and today's topic is gonna be about how do you recover when something devastating happens in your life, or how do you recover when life just doesn't go as planned and you are disappointed? So I'm excited to talk to Dawn. She's written a whole book about it. But before we get started, let me share my win and my fail like I do every week. My win is that my good friend Julie Baer came to visit me. We have been friends since middle school, which was decades and decades ago, and it was so nice. She's never been to California. She's never been to my home. I think she's met all my children, but they were really little. The last time she saw them was at my father's funeral, which was a decade ago, and my 11-year-old was just a baby. And so it It was just great. She came, she spent some time at my home, and then we basically just took her all around Los Angeles, tired her out. I kind of felt bad, but we had such a great time. And the win is that I set aside my work. I set aside the things that I usually do. I barely worked. I think I just took one meeting the whole time she was here. Sometimes I have to remind myself that my relationships are way more important than my work, and I shouldn't have to remind myself of that, but I do tend to work a lot. So my win is that I put aside my work, spent a weekend with Julie, and it was really, really wonderful. And it's something that we have committed to doing every 2 years. We missed last year, but we're already talking about what we're going to do 2 years from now. So yes, that's my win. So sweet. And I'll probably share some pictures of our trip on my email. So if you guys are subscribed to my email, you can see all the fun that we had in LA. The really hilarious thing is that Because Julie came to visit, we took her up to the Hollywood sign, which I have never hiked to the Hollywood sign in the 30 years that I've lived here in LA. And so of course, I used to pass it every day on my way to work, but it was so much fun. So that's my win. My fail, well, I'm definitely behind in my writing for sure. And that's just the thing. And I'm learning that that's just part of being a writer. My other fail, and I'm not sure this is really a fail, but it's just a struggle in my life. My daughter Sullivan is not doing well. She is unfortunately back in the hospital and she is struggling with a lot of mental health issues, some physical issues, and it's just been really hard, hard for her, hard for me, hard for our family. And for a perfectionist who just wants everything to go well and do well, Having that part feel very much out of control is hard. And my fail is that I'm still struggling a little bit in that area. I mean, I guess a win is that I'm getting better, but you know, mamas, it's hard when your kids are not okay. And it's doubly hard when you feel like you should be able to fix it. And there's some things in life that we just can't fix, at least not easily. So that's a struggle. Can't necessarily say I'm failing, But it's definitely a struggle, and I share my wins and my fails, or my wins and my struggles, so that you guys know I'm a real person. And you know, I pray for wisdom. I pray for clarity. I pray for discernment. Those, you know, in addition to just me loving my family and relationships, wisdom, clarity, and discernment are my deepest desires and goals for my life. And and so that's what I pray for, and. I had a point about saying all that, but I don't remember what my point was. I think it's just that we all struggle and our struggles do, can provide us with wisdom. They can provide us with discernment. We have to go through some of the hard things first to get there. And what I do know from a place of wisdom, which isn't always attached to our emotional self, right? But from a place of wisdom, what I know is that there is a plan. And I can't see all the pieces because I'm not omniscient and omnipotent. I am human. And so what I have to do and what you have to do when you're going through a hard time is put your head down, do the next right thing, and trust that it's all going to work out. So let's get on to the episode, which kind of is tied into what I'm talking about today. You know, how do you recover when your world seems to fall apart? Listen in. Dawn, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're joining me today.

Well, thank you for having me. I am honored to be here today.

Thank you. You know, I was so excited to talk to you because we met and I like, I like telling people where we met. I've just kind of started that with my podcast, but we met in a Hope Writers group. I host Tuesday Teachings with Hope Writers and we met in a group and you told me about your book. And it really piqued my interest. And I wanted to have you come on and talk to my audience. So that's where we met.

Yep. And it was an unexpected situation because I hadn't been on a Hope Writers teaching in like a year. But I really moved to join it that day. And then serendipity.

Here we are. Here we are. So can you tell my listeners about your story? How did you come to being the authority? Sometimes we're unfortunately the authority on something, right? How did you come to being able to talk about this subject?

Well, I had a lot of unexpected situations happen in my life. Most recently, and what I focused on a lot in the book, was I— after marrying my husband, a year into our marriage, I had the first of 2 consecutive miscarriages, followed quickly by the death of my husband, all within a span of 8 months.

Wow. I'm so sorry. My goodness.

So yeah, talk about unexpected. He was out jogging. And had a massive heart attack.

How long ago was this? And how old was he?

He was 45 years old. And it was just over 13 years ago. In fact, we just celebrated the 13th anniversary. And I used that to launch my book because I very much feel like my book is a part of his legacy.

Wow. So, you know, many women, myself included, have experienced devastating loss, have experienced moments, incidents, times when we just think, this is not what I signed up for in this life. This is not what I signed up for in this chapter. This isn't what I signed up for in this marriage. This isn't what I signed up for in parenting and this job, career, whatever it is. Things happen and they don't go as we expected, and we can be so very disappointed and devastated. And so tell me a little bit about— so you had this devastating experience with your miscarriages, with your— the loss of your husband. You even had a divorce prior to that, which can be quite devastating. I've been through that, so I know. How did you Figure out how to come out of it in a healthy way?

Well, I had lost my father 5 years, 6 years before my husband's death. And so I knew healing from a devastating loss— excuse me— was possible. But I felt stuck. I didn't know how to move forward in this particular situation. And I think— because of the unexpected nature of it. My father had been ill for several months.

Right.

And so it wasn't a surprise for him to pass away, whereas with my husband, it very much was. And in another way it was a surprise is I think society sells us a bill of goods. And they— society basically says that there's a checklist that we have that we grow up, we graduate from high school, we go to college, we get a job, we find, uh, you know, the— our life partner.

Marry Prince Charming.

Exactly. That there's— and not necessarily in that order, right? But that there are things that we're checking off. And we have this thought in our head that we're only going to have to do these things once. We're only going to have to go to college once. We're only— We're going to meet our life partner, and it'll be for life. But we're not told how that's going to unfold, right?

And even when we see it happening with other people, they're the exception. That's not going to happen with us.

Yeah. We think that— because we're sold this bill of goods. When those things happen, we're sold as part of that bill of goods that these are the exceptions, that we're not the exception, right? Because if we're sold we're the exception, we wouldn't buy the product, right? We wouldn't buy that. And so we're told that this is— everything's going to be great if you just do these things. And so I did these things. I even had reached some level of success in my career, right? So I was feeling like things were finally— because I had had several unproductive, bad relationships, not just my divorce, before I met Prince Charming, right? Mm-hmm. And so I was like, You know, like the song Cruisin'.

Yeah.

Things were going to happen. And then all of a sudden, you know, instead of being the car in the windshield, I became the bug. Splat. And ouch. I was like— and life just didn't go the way it was supposed to, right? Isn't that what we say? It's not supposed to be this way.

Not supposed to be this way, yes. I speak to so many women in my practice, and even men who sit on my virtual chair now, and say, it's not supposed to be this way. I thought it would be different. And now, now what do I do? Now how do I live? Am I supposed to accept this in my life? How do I get over this and still have some sense of happiness and fulfillment in my life when this thing that I thought was going to be it is no longer, I'm realizing? So how did you get there? What are the steps? And I know in your book you talk about 7 steps.

Yeah, so following God's creative process for rebuilding a life. And so I was studying the Book of Genesis, and as I studied it, I saw right there woven in the pages of the creation story where God created the very first lives, male and female, Adam and Eve. And it struck me that this was a model for creating my own life. So yeah, right there in those 7 days, I found 7 steps for creating our lives.

What does that look like?

Well, the first step actually, um, is hovering. The first thing God did in the creation story was to hover. In verse 2, it says the Spirit of God hovered. I know a lot of us, we begin—

Yeah.

We begin with God created light, and so we think we're gonna start with the light, but we actually started with hovering. And hovering, I found to be This place where there's movement, but not necessarily forward progress, right? Mm-hmm. Because when we hover, we're in one place. We're not really moving forward. And that word hover in the Hebrew means to circulate. We're kind of like just softly, easily hanging out with God in this first step. And in that step, that's where we basically realign our lives with what we thought was going to happen, with what the new direction God is taking us in now.

Wow. You know, that's so powerful for me as I have moved through some crazy transitions in my life recently. Because I've been in a space where I've thought, why am I not moving forward? Why am I not feeling productive right now? I should have more energy. I should be doing more. And when you just said that hovering, that really resonated with me because in that hovering, there's a lot of preparation that's going on, but it's kind of like you've gone inside, right? You're going inside and you're looking and, and maybe evaluating and, and really storing up what you need for that next, for that next season. I love that word hovering, and I'm going to be using it now because part of it also makes me think about grief and the stages of grief. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And some of those stages of grief where you're trying to move forward, you do have to go inward. And so for a woman out there who may be feeling very devastated, who may be feeling paralyzed even, I wonder if we could reframe that as she's working through this transition in her life to maybe right now you're recovering. Maybe right now your body and your soul and your mind need to sit. And observe, right? And, and, oh, I just love that word hover. Thank you. Okay, so—

And be careful not to get out ahead of God, right?

Oh, yes.

That we're waiting. Because for me, and very much like in the creation story, the creation story says the earth was without form, void, and darkness was over the face of the earth. And so without form, there's no structure.

Right.

There was none to my life. There's a void, an emptiness. I'm missing my husband and my 2 children.

Yeah.

Right? And then it's dark. I had no idea how to move forward. I couldn't see the way ahead. And so I needed to kind of hover to catch my breath, to heal, to figure out where God was again, right? Because I thought we were heading in a certain direction. I had— I mean, it was only 2 years into my marriage.

Right.

I had actually just left my corporate job to go into full-time ministry 6 months before my husband died. And I thought we were moving full steam ahead in the direction that the Lord wanted me to go in, but obviously not.

Well, you were, but you didn't know it was going to happen, what his actual plans were.

Exactly. Like, his plan was for me to have this break 6 months into it where I could sit And wait with him and get new instructions.

Yes.

That's part of the reason why we have to hover, because it's like, okay, God, what I thought I was supposed to be doing next—

Yeah.

Apparently isn't what I'm supposed to be doing next. So I need to sit here for a minute until I can hear and see what it is that you would have for me to do next. And that's the second step, right? This where it says God said, let there be light, and there was light. There will come a time when the darkness will lift, that, that there will be a light and we will have a vision. But thankfully, as part of giving us that light— again, a lot of times when we think of the light, we immediately think of this vision that God's going to give us, this revelation that he download to us. And yes, that happens. But when God created light, He also created time, right? We had darkness and then we had light. We had night and now we have day. And we now have these cycles of night and day. And so God is creating time. And so in giving us that light, he's also giving us time. From the moment we're born and the first time he gives us light and revelation and an idea of what we're doing, that is the beginning of the time of our life. But within our life, he gives us periods of time too. Yeah. And so part of that healing, he was giving me, as part of the hovering, he was giving me time to heal. But when the light comes, he's giving me my new vision, the new thing I'm supposed to be doing, the next step, the next chapter of my life. And so I start moving forward in it. And so I need to seize the moment. And that's the next step is that when he starts giving me the light, Right.

Then you have to see it.

Yeah, start to see what he sees. Be open to those possibilities so that we can see the next thing that's going to come along. Because for me, I can't speak for everybody else, I didn't want to let go of the vision of my life with my husband in it. And I struggled at first to see my life differently. And so I needed that new revelation so I could start seeing something differently. Right. And start moving forward in it after I healed.

That's so beautiful. And so I'm just thinking about the woman out there who, you know, maybe in a situation where she's been waiting forever for her spouse. Maybe she's a single woman waiting and it just doesn't seem like the timing is happening. Or maybe she's a woman who's been in a long-term marriage and is very unhappy. Or maybe a woman who is trying to have a child and the time isn't— the time is going by and by. And maybe she's having some— a lot of miscarriages like you experienced. All of, you know, so many things can happen in life that just feel unexpected and devastating. And I'm hoping that women out there who are listening to this can think, oh, I can see where I can maybe hover. And I can see in that space, in that dark space, because the dark space feels so lonely sometimes, so lonely. It doesn't feel productive. But if maybe she can take that lens and shift it to recognizing that that dark space is really important, just like the seed that goes into the dirt, and that light will come and there will be a vision and there will be something new, even if it's not the thing that she thought it would be. That something new will come out of that dark space. And then there'll be a time, because there are seasons in our lives, and then that next season is a time of seizing that vision, right? And along with seizing a vision, you also have to let go of your previous idea, right?

Yep. And that leads us to the 3rd step.

OK. OK.

Which is create space to breathe and a source of water. And the next thing God did was he separated the waters above from the waters below.

Right.

Right. Separated vertically, and then he separated horizontally when he gathered the waters and the dry land appeared. So first, when he separated vertically, that's when the atmosphere gets created. And that's why I say a space to breathe. Even with the waters, that's just a different type of water, right? H2O. Air is just water in the gaseous state, right?

Yeah.

And then we also have ice when things are cold. But so we're separating those 2 waters. Often water is a metaphor for emotions. And so what I came to understand is after God gives us that vision for our lives, we have to then deal with our emotions.

Yeah.

About it.

Oh my God.

For me, like I said, not only did I— I didn't want to vision my life differently, right? It's like I had worked too hard to get to this place.

I

didn't want to start over, right? And so I had to deal with those emotions, right? And so with that separation, I had to separate out all of those negative emotions, and I had to put them before God. I also started to see a Christian therapist. Right? Because I couldn't do it by myself. It was just— You needed to grieve. Yeah.

The loss of the dream. Yeah.

And I needed help in recognizing that I had unresolved grief because I started seeing a therapist again 10 years later because I still had unresolved grief that I didn't realize was tied 10 years later to my husband. And so, yeah, I'm weeding through all of these negative emotions. And what does this mean? And what does that mean? And how do I deal with this? and how I feel about this now. And one of— I felt some really dark feelings. I don't know about other people, but I felt betrayed. Yeah. I felt— to be honest, I felt teased, right? I was like— I had— like I mentioned, you know, I had a divorce. I had several other unproductive relationships in my life previous— prior to meeting the man of my dreams. And here I am now going, wait a minute, God. You know, I'm a minister at my church. I was, um, Seeing someone else who was very active— you know, seeing someone else, my husband. I'm involved in love. You know, I married this other person who is also very active in ministry. He's a youth counselor at our church, right? I thought this was the kind of relationship you would want to plant children into. So I'm a little confused. No, let me just tell the truth. I'm a lot confused. And I'm angry.

Angry.

And I'm frustrated. And I felt teased.

Yes.

And so I had to deal with those emotions, right? Because that's a dangerous place to be in where I'm sitting up here going, God, yeah, this is not what I signed up for. And, and you need to do better. I'm just like, I'm just not happy about this, right?

Yes.

I'd had to check me, right? And say, okay, wait a minute, what's going on here? And I had to, you know, weed through these things and come to Realize that if I was going to allow God to be God in my life, I had to deal with the fact that sometimes I wasn't going to like the choices that he made for me.

Yeah, right.

And accept that. But then also too, with the gathering, right, I had a lot of good emotions though also coming out of this, right? I was excited about this new opportunity that I was finally seeing as a clean slate that really— You know, it was like, so what do I do now? Anything I want to, in a sense. I mean, I had this vision, but this vision was a dream of mine to be a writer. And God was saying, you know, that's not over.

Right.

That dream I gave you, that part of the vision I gave you before, that didn't die with your husband, right? You're still going to get to do that. And I was like, what? And so I started to find myself getting excited again, but not until I had weeded through The emotions that I had.

Right.

And I had to practice some spiritual disciplines in order to do that, right? I had to journal, right? Fasting helped me quite a bit. There were a lot of different spiritual disciplines that I utilized. Celebration, right? That's what— when something unexpected happens that you didn't want to happen in your life, that you're not necessarily thinking you want to sign up for, but going, you know, Along this path, there were some blessings. And I need to remember how to celebrate again, which is a key point in enjoying life again.

Absolutely.

Saying, I need to start embracing the good.

Right.

And if I embrace the good, then dare I say, can I be happy again? Because I'm embracing the good. And these are things that I need to start doing.

Yes. And let me point out, you first have to go through those other steps. You first have to go through that anger, that saying, God, this is not fair. You messed up and I'm not happy, right? I'm angry. I'm, I'm raging at you right now. This is not okay. This is what wasn't what we agreed on when we started talking about this whole thing. And it's okay to go through that stage. In fact, it's a necessary stage of grief. Is to acknowledge how you feel because life isn't fair. We don't understand it, and it's not fair sometimes. And sometimes it's not fair in a really good way, and we get great things. And sometimes it's not fair in a really, really bad way. And when we don't acknowledge it, then we just press grief down. And instead of being able to get to a place of acceptance, we get— we stay or fall into a place of bitterness and resent— and resentfulness. Uh, resentment. So, yes. So you went through those stages. You hovered. You were in the dark space. You went through anger. And then you started to get to a place where you could see some light, where you could see the good and begin to celebrate.

Yeah. And then next, um, is sow productive seeds in fertile soil.

Tell us about that.

So there's 2 elements of that, right?

Uh-huh.

And the first one is the soil, planting into good ground. And for me, the good ground was the church, was, you know, I had a vibrant, strong home church where there was a lot of love. But I had to start planting seeds without my husband because I had been moving forward. Actually, the ministry that we had was for couples. And so I had to say, okay, I'm back to ministering to women and back to just being, you know, me.

Right.

And so I had to start over with that. And fertile soil doesn't have to be your church. It can be your job, right? It can be your family, right? But it needs to be home, right? A place that you can call home. So you're building a new foundation with this new home. And you're built— putting in there productive seeds. Now, in the creation story, there are 2 types of seeds that are talked about. There are herb seeds and there are fruit seeds. And in the story, it tells you that fruit seeds— fruit seeds come from fruit.

Right.

And fruit is the edible part of the plant where the seed is inside the fruit. Now, there are also parts of the plant like leaves, Right? Like spinach, kale, right? The seed's not inside of those, right?

Right.

So there are 2 types, and they represent activities that we can do in our lives. And we can do 2 types in that way, where there are types where there is seed inside the activity, and there is an action we can do where there isn't. And so what happens is, if you're doing those things where the seed is not inside of it, That's work. And all that— and when you're done, there's nothing productive. There's nothing— you know, there's no fruit that is born out of that. That's just something that you've done. But when you've done an action where there is a fruit that is born of it, where you reap a harvest at the end of that, part of the way you know that there's a harvest is that there's a seed for your next action inside that action. Right.

OK. OK.

And so, for instance, one of the things I did was I took a class at my church, right? When I was in that class, the instructor of that class came to me and offered me a class of my own to teach. Another activity is what we did in going to that Hope Writers—

Right.

Right? I went to that Hope Writers. You invited me on this podcast.

Yeah.

They are actions where other actions and activities are born from them. Now, I didn't see those 2.

Right. You didn't know that that was going to happen.

Those I didn't know were going to happen. Right? But the class I took was on hospitality. And I took it because I said, I want to be hospitable. I'm a Bible teacher. And to me, hospitality isn't just dinner parties and having people over. It was when— how do I create a hospitable environment when I'm teaching a class? And so my— where I saw the seed in that was when I go off and teach a class, I'll be able to share that hospitality with the people who attend the class. And that was a seed that I saw within that course. But then there are other seeds, which is why I mentioned other things too, that we don't necessarily see that are also seeds that God will give us for the next thing. And so I'm very excited about this podcast because I'm really like, what is God going to birth out of me being on your podcast? What is the next— what is the seed that will come from this?

Right. That's beautiful. And I think it's especially beautiful that you talk about seeds where we know, like, we have intention of planting something, and then the ones where we don't have any intention. I think And I think those are the most special ones where we are maybe just walking out on faith or we just have an idea that something may be good, but we don't know what's going to come from it. So let's talk about the next steps. So you said seed planting. And when I think about that as well, I also think about what I know from psychology, which is that in helping other people, we help ourselves. We know that regarding depression and anxiety, when we get outside of ourselves and help someone else who may be going through something that we have gone through, we have a little bit of knowledge, even if we're just a step or two above them, that it can help us get out of our own funk, depression, anxious state. And so when I hear about that, I think of that as well regarding planting seeds. So what would you say is the next step?

The next step is shine your light at the right time, because I think God creates the sun, the moon, and the stars. And so that's where timing comes in. Like, when are we supposed to do these things? And part of sowing the seeds, right, is preparation. So remember I said I was taking a class. I didn't know when God was going to say, Dawn, it was time to shine, right? And so in preparation for shining, I was doing actions to prepare.

Right.

Right? But then this step, like I said, is shining your light. So these are when God— you, you know, it's not as much preparation. You're, you're transitioning into actually moving out into your purpose,

right?

Doing the things that God has shown you in the vision that you're supposed to do.

I love that.

Yeah. And then, like I said, it's a matter of timing and show you when you're supposed to do these things. He'll give you signs. Mm-hmm. Now, in my story, when he gave me the vision for the book, I thought I would go to some writing conferences.

Mm-hmm.

And a writing conference came up that I actually had planned to attend before my husband died. And I was thinking, oh, I'm going to attend this conference. And I wanted to meet with some agents.

Mm-hmm.

And I went to talk to my writing coach. In order to figure out which agents I wanted to go and talk to. In the span of 2 days, right, that it took for me to talk to my writing coach, all of the appointments dried up. They were all blown.

Oh.

Right? And so I was like, God, I thought this was the thing I'm supposed to do, right? Well, apparently not. The timing wasn't right. Exactly 2 weeks later, I get an email about a Book Proposal Boot Camp. And so I'm praying, like, should I do this? And I immediately felt like I should. And the Book Proposal Boot Camp, you had to apply to get in. You couldn't just sign up because it was an activity that was highly— people wanted to be a part of it.

Yeah.

And so I applied, and I was accepted. There were only 100 of us who were accepted to be in it. Which was a sign to me that this was something I should do.

Yeah.

So I went ahead and did it.

Timing is right.

Exactly. And so the doors opened. There was one where the door didn't open. It's like, hmm, I'm thinking I should do this thing. Let me see. And I started to take steps. What agent should I go and talk to? No appointments available. But then this other one, which is even more select, Right? Like I said, it's not open to the public in the sense of— because like anyone, if I had signed up early enough, I could have gotten an agent appointment. But no, they're only picking 100 people. But yet that door opened. And that was a sign that was the direction I was supposed to go in.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I very much believe in that concept. I think Oprah talks about it when she talks about— I don't think this is her quote, but Luck being preparation meeting opportunity, right? We need to be in that space of being prepared because we don't know when that opportunity is going to come. So I don't know where we are. I've lost where we are in the steps. Can you tell us about what your life looks like now and how you put your life together from the devastating loss?

Yeah, well, funny you should mention that because my life looks 180 degrees different than what did at the time my husband died. When my husband first died, I struggled to get out of bed, to just be honest with you. Since we didn't have any children, I didn't have any children from any previous relationship. It's back to being just me again.

Yeah.

I struggled to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. One of my mentors told me, you can stay in the bed for 2 days, but like Jesus, on the 3rd day, you have to rise. If all you do is go and take a shower—

Uh-huh. Yeah.

—and get back in the bed, you got to get up and take that shower. And so in the beginning, I'll be honest, sometimes that's all I did was get up, take that shower, and get back in the bed.

Mm-hmm.

But today, I rise. I'm an— I've always been— well, except for that moment in my life, but an early riser. I rise up early in the morning, and I move. That dream of a book is now here. And I think I mentioned to you, I'm on vacation. You guys can't see it because I have my background in place. But I'm in Barbados, y'all.

That's wonderful.

And I'm listening to the see the waves coming in and all of that. And I'm just really enjoying life. It is a totally different place from where it was before. And I even end my book on that. Um, at the end of my book, I was on a different vacation, right? I went to the Highlands during that vacation. Oh. And so, yeah, I don't have a new husband. Um, I don't know if I will. I'm open to that if it might happen. Um, But relationships have come since my husband. And I'm just in a really good place. I mean, I sent out a newsletter where it says it's starting to get good, meaning like, these podcasts are fun, right?

Yeah.

And so I'm starting to have a good time from that perspective. So there's a lot of really good things that are happening for me now that I wasn't in a place to embrace. following the loss of my children and my husband.

Thank you for sharing that. So are there a couple last steps that we need to talk about?

Yeah, there are. We finished with step 5.

OK.

Step 6 is embody and engage with the help. And it basically talks about how you can engage with 3 types of people in order to build different relationships in your life. Mm-hmm. Basically mentors, which are the birds that God created. And then the animals, right? They're on the same level as us. And so they're our peers. And then there are the sea and marine life. And those are the people who we're going to mentor to or bring along now that we've are in a better place. And the last step is, um, play your role. And what that has to do with is we were created in God's image in order to be his representatives here on Earth. Right. So God has a unique role for you in his kingdom and for you to fulfill that role to the best of your ability. And the real joy comes then because when you're walking in your purpose, At least that's how it was for me. When I started walking in my purpose again, that's when I started to really heal. With each step, I remember stages of healing, and with each step, I really moved forward.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. And sometimes we fight the role that God has for us, don't we?

Yeah. Now you're back to dealing with those emotions again,

right? Dealing with those emotions. Sometimes we fight them, but when we go ahead and, and just relax into them, then we, I think we find true freedom. True freedom. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I know you're in Barbados, so you probably don't have your book with you. Um, can you share the title of your book?

I sure can. It's called When Your World Ends: God's Creative Process for Rebuilding a Life.

It's beautiful. It's a great title. And I will put the link in the show notes and you guys can preorder it already from Amazon or any of the places I'm sure. So can you tell us about how people can contact you and if— what else do you have going on?

Okay, well, um, you can find me at dawnmannsanders.com. That's D-A-W-N for Dawn, um, M-A-N-N for Mann, and Sanders is S-A-N-D-E-R-S dot com. And

we'll put that in the link so you don't have to memorize that.

And along with the book, I also have a companion class. Uh, what I have found is that, uh, rebuilding your life is not an overnight process and that having some people come alongside of you, much like you come alongside of people with your podcast, um, is very helpful. And so, um, I'd like to make that course available to your, um, listeners. And I don't have the code ready right now, but I will provide the code to you, Zoe, and, um, you can put it in the show notes where if, um, they buy the book that they can, um, get the course for free. And so, um, I would like, you know, love for them to benefit as much as possible from this.

Thank you so much. That's very generous of you. Um, what's one last word that you have for a woman who may be in a place of struggling? Like, yeah, this is totally not what I signed up for.

Like you said, that it's okay to feel that way, but this too shall pass. And that if you just hover with God and you hang in there, Yeah. Then the moment will come. He'll shine the light, and you can seize that moment and move forward.

The good is coming. The good is coming.

It's coming. Yep. Your season is coming.

Yes. Thank you so much, Dawn, for taking the time out of your vacation to chat with us. I wish you the very best of luck with this book, and I imagine future ones as well.

Thank you. It was my pleasure to be here. I really appreciate you having me. And I wish your listeners all the very best.

Thank you so much. Take care. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe to my email list so that you can get some encouragement from me and have a strong week. See you next week.