The Secret Place: Part Two

Moms in stress. It seems like the two go hand in hand, right? Well, until now. That's right. In today's episode, we're diving into stress. And here's the deal. We're not going to learn how to manage stress. We're going to learn how to get rid of it for good. Welcome to Mom Mastery University. The education every mom should have had, but mom didn't. I'm Hannah Keeley, America's number one mom coach. And class is now in session. Hey there, Master mom and welcome back to Mom Master University and the secret place. That's right, we are camping out in stress. Well, hopefully we're like getting out of that. We're not going to camp out in stress anymore. Okay. We're getting out of stress for good. Yes. Believe it or not, you can live a life absent of stress. It's possible. It really is. There's really no need for dysfunctional stress in your life. So we're going to establish the life that you can get without stress. And that is the secret place. See, there's a place, it's kind of like your own hiding place where you are exempt from stress. It just passes right over you. It's like you're not even a fan affected by it. And it is totally achievable in your life when you unlock the secret place. Now we. We learned in part one, and if you haven't watched that or listened to that, make sure you go back and consume that content. Make sure you do the first step because that's the first key and it's establishing your source. Now, today and this week, we're going to camp out and learn the second key. And that second key is to empower your soul. So first we learn to establish our source. Our source has to be God because that's the only stable source. Everything else is. Is subject to change. And that's why we feel stress is, because whatever source we plug into, if it's not a stable source, we're going to feel unstable in our life. Now, once we establish a source, and that's key number one, we're going to use key number two and we're going to learn how to empower our soul. Soul. Now, let's get super clear on, first of all, what is your soul? Well, we are soul talked about a lot of times and, and I think it gets kind of a little vague like we're not really sure what that is. But I want to share with you what your soul is. And that's your mind, your will and your emotions. Okay. Your soul is your mind, your will, your emotions. It's not the same as your spirit. You are a spirit, that is who you are. You are a spiritual being before you are anything else. So you are a spirit, you have a soul, which is your mind, your will, your emotions, and you live in a body. So we have to get super clear about this or else we're not going to become like, as, as well versed in understanding how to renew our mind. See, this is essential if you're going to be exempt from stress. You have to know how to work with your thoughts. And instead of being captured by your thoughts, okay, and what, first we have to discriminate is what our soul is. Now your soul is your mind, your will, your emotions. Your soul is what needs to be renewed continually. Because once your spirit is made brand new, and what I mean by that is being a spiritual being. If you are a believer, if you're a Christian, what that means is that really you're a new being. You're a new being entirely. You are a new spirit. Spirit. It says in the Bible that as soon as we say, Jesus, I want to make you Lord in my life, come in my heart, I want to live for you. It's like the most simplest strategy you can execute in life. To have a complete, whole, abundant life is first of all, recognize that God, I want a relationship with you. And I had that relationship through Jesus. Now once you make that decision, what happens is your spirit becomes brand new. And the Bible says that you are pulled out of a kingdom of darkness and, and put into a kingdom of light. So now your brand new spirit, that is the beginning point. I think one area that Christianity has not really been very served people very well. I'll say it that way. One area that Christianity has not served people very well is helping them understand how to work with their minds. You see, a lot of times I see people in the church and Christians, they focus on making sure that someone makes a decision to become a Christian. And they feel like that's the end all. But that's not. That's the starting block. You see, there are a lot of Christians out there, a lot of believers who are living miserable lives. So it's true, you can be born again and be absolutely miserable, broke, destructive thoughts, self hate, all of that. If you haven't done the process of renewing your mind, mind. So let me make this super clear. Your, your three part being, your body, your soul, which is your mind, your will, your emotions and your spirit. Now once you become a new Creation in Christ, a spirit. Now we still have a body. What's in between that your soul. So now becomes a process of renewing our soul to conform to the new person that we are in Jesus. This is. Are you ready for this? A lifelong process. So that's what it means to renew our mind. I want to read this to you. This is Romans 12:2. That's our first strategy, is we have to renew our mind and it's a process. Now, Romans 12:2 says, this is the new international version. It says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good, pleasing and perfect will. So what this means is we're not supposed to conform to the pattern of this world. I want you to think about this in terms of stress. The pattern of this world says, everyone just experiences stress, and now we need to learn how to manage it better. But I am not in the camp of thinking you have to learn how to manage stress. And if I'm the only person there, then I will create the camp by myself. I am in the camp of believing that you can actually overcome stress and live without it. So instead of putting your energy toward managing stress, we can put our energy toward renewing our mind so that we can now live exempt from stress. And this is possible. You see, salvation is a decision. You decide to make Jesus the Lord of your life, right? That's salvation. But renewing your mind to now conform with this new person you become, that is a continual process. It never stops. That's what we do here at Mom Master University. We are always in the process of up leveling because we're working with our thoughts to become a better version of who we are every single day. We're not just doing this for ourselves, right? We're doing this for our children, our grandchildren, for generations that will come after us. It is the best investment you can make, investing in your mind and renewing that part of you. Now, when we renew our mind, this is basically the process of gaining access to the secret place. Remember, that's our key verse, the very beginning. Our key verse is. Let me grab this. This is Psalm 91:9. I'm going to remind you of our key verse in this entire series. He who dwells in the secret place of the most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty, whose power no folk can withstand. Now, that key verse right there, it talks about a secret place. We have a Secret place where we are safe, stable and secure. And how does that happen? We renew our mind. We have to constantly be in the process of renewing our mind so that we can be more like him. Now, when I say him, that's Jesus. Okay, here's the second point. Stress is felt when there is a disconnect between your spirit and your soul. Now, this is the hardest place for Christians, for believers, and for moms too, because we have so many variables in our life that can potentially create. Stress is we have a. We're a brand new person, right? We have. We've chosen to follow Jesus. We love God, but we haven't renewed our mind. So now we still have debilitating thoughts. We still have unworthiness, we still have shame. We still have doubt, we still have fear. And subsequently, we still have stress. I want you to think about that. Secret place is a hiding place. It's a place where we're safe and stable and hidden, okay? Hidden from all the circumstances that could hurt us. Hidden from all the. All the strategies and tactics of the enemy. We're safe in that place. Now if we're not hidden, we're exposed. So what stress is. It becomes the feeling that we have when we feel exposed, vulnerable. Think about it. The root of stress is always fear. And fear happens when we feel vulnerable and exposed, like there's a potential hazard that could hurt us. Okay? We're not hidden. So I want you to think about when. About the Passover. So let's go back to the Passover. And if you remember, that was when there were the plagues in Egypt. And that final plague was when the angel of death would come over and the firstborn of every household would die. But the Israelites, when they followed the direction of God and they. They killed the lamb. And once that, Once that lamb was slaughtered, they would put the blood of the lamb on their doorpost. They would consume the meal which was the lamb. And then. And they were safe. They were safe from death. Now, why am I going back to that when I'm talking about stress? I'll explain. You see, I want you to think about the blood that was on the doorposts of their home. That became a signal to the angel of death, you must pass over this house. It was almost as if that household was invisible to the plague. The plague could not touch that house. It could not come into that house. It could not attack that, the children. It could not do anything of damage because it was off the radar. It wasn't even. It wasn't even within the vision, right, of that harbinger, that. That. That death spirit. So when we are enclosed and covered, we are safe. Not just because we put a lot of protection around us, but because we have been made invisible to the enemy. Now, I want you to think about that, because, of course, the blood is a symbol of the sacrifice that Jesus made. I want to read this to you. This is Exodus 12:13, and it says this. The blood shall be assigned for you on the doorposts of the houses where you live. When I see the blood, I shall pass over you, and no affliction shall happen to you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Now, this becomes kind of a metaphor, right, for what Jesus does in our life. So when we are covered in the blood of Jesus, what that means is we have become now grafted into the source. Remember from. From the first session, okay? We have to be grafted in, plugged into our source. So we're now plugged into the source, and we're hidden. We are inside the presence of God through Jesus. Jesus said, abide in me, Let my word abide in you, and ask for anything. And it's established. So basically, we're going to be so tight, all right? We're going to be so tight in this relationship that we have with God through Jesus that it's like you can't tell where one ends and the other one begins. That's how tight Jesus wants to be in your life. He wants that intimacy, that relationship, that connection. And yes, that hiding place. That is our secret place. Hidden, nestled right there. If you can imagine, like God, you know, let. Let's say he's just this. This beautiful, like, winged creature, right? When you have a mother bird, you can't see the babies underneath, right? She will just. She will just cover those baby chicks with her wings. And you can't even see any chicks in the nest. That's where God wants us. That's our secret place. Nestled safe, insecure in the presence of God so that the enemy can't even see us. And guess what? If he can't see us, he can't hurt us. And we need to adopt that presence of God and bring it into our lives in such a profound way that we start talking the way God talks. We dress the way God dresses, right? And in all the. In all the armor of salvation, like the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, all the armor of God. We dress like him, we talk like him, we speak his words, we walk like him in faith and courage and power and Authority. And pretty soon the enemy thinks we are God, right? Because we have adopted, we have, we have just ingested so much of him in our life that, that we start to the way the Bible says and be imitators of him here in this world. So stress is always felt when there's a disconnect when who you really are as a born again spirit, you are the head and not the tail. You're the top and not the bottom. You are righteous, you are worthy, you are, there is no fault in you, there's no blame in you, you are perfect. But yet here's the soul which has learned from the time you were born that there's pain in the world, there's betrayal, I can't trust, I've been hurt, there's been trauma. Like all the things that have happened to your life have given you these beliefs that you carry into your life and you start perpetuating negative patterns which create stress. Now stay with me here. This is so important. Stress comes when there's a disconnect. So how do we prevent that disconnect? How do we join our soul with our spirit is we have to renew it continually, continually, continually renewing our mind through the word of God. So we become more like God and then the more we're like God, the less stress we feel. Isn't this powerful? See, our soul, our mind, our will, our emotions are literally hidden under our spirit which is our brand new born again identity. Now, renewal of our mind all comes down to, to the faith formula. Everything inside Mom, Master University, everything inside, my coaching, everything inside our coach training program is all based on the faith formula. So let me just carry you through it really quickly. And it goes like this. The way you think becomes how you feel, right? When we hold a thought long enough, we start to feel it in our body. And then the way you feel eventually becomes what you do. If you start, if you're feeling hungry, you're going to eat. If you're feeling scared, you're going to have anxiety or run away and hide or fight back. If you feel bold, you're going to do something courageous. And what you do will always create what you have. So it goes like that. You think, then you feel, then you do, then you have. That's the very, very short, contracted version of the faith formula. And that is how our mind is renewed. Now think about this. Everything, if you look at that faith formula, everything comes down to our thoughts. That is the root of everything is our thoughts. Because that's where it all starts. Everything, what you have right now, I want you to think about everything you're experiencing in your life. Your circumstances, your current relationships, everything you are currently experiencing right now began as a thought. That's it. Where your finances are, where your relationship is, where your health is, it all began as a thought. Now, how do I know this? Check out Proverbs 4. 23. I'm going to read to you first the new international version. It says this. Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. So think about that. Guard your heart. And when the Bible is talking about your heart, it talks about your core belief system, basically your subconscious, those behaviors and those thoughts and those beliefs that you have adopted throughout the experiences and what you've been exposed to in your life. So above all else, guard that, monitor it, be careful with it, be aware of it, work with it, renew it. Because out of what's in your heart is everything. According to the NIV version, everything you do flows from it. So there we see it. The way we think becomes how we feel, and it becomes what we do. Now we know that what we do becomes what we have. Listen to the new living translation. It says, guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Right? The course of our life all goes back to the decisions that we make. And the decisions we make all go back to the way we feel. And the way we feel all goes back to you. Got it? You can fill in the blank. The way we think. So let's go to our thoughts, because we need to know how to work with our thoughts. And in James 1, it says this. This is James 1, 6, 8 only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering, no hesitating, no doubting. For the one who wavers, hesitates and doubts is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind. Can I just say right there that we do not use hither and thither enough in our. In our speech today. I think we all need to. To make a decision to use hither and thither at least two times today in conversation. Okay, Sorry, just had to throw that out there. All right, next verse. For truly, let not such a person even imagine that he will receive anything he asks for from the Lord, for being as he is, a man of two minds. You can also say a mom of two minds. I mean, this is Mom Master University, right? A man of two minds, hesitating, dubious and irresolute. He's unstable. Hold on to that word, unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything he thinks, feels and decides. Now he's unstable. You know what that is? That is stress. Let me go back to this first Psalm 91, which is what this entire coaching series this month is based on, is, he who dwells in the secret place of the most high shall remain stable and fixed. If we're not stable, we are unstable. And that looks like stress. We're going back and forth, we're tossed here and there, hither and thither, right? We're trying to believe in and something great happening, but we secretly are holding a fear that it's not going to happen. And all of a sudden, everything that we're dependent on, our source is not there. It's not stable. Therefore we are not stable. So I want to show you that he's unstable, unreliable and uncertain about everything. And in the classic amplified version, it says this. Everything he thinks, feels, decides. Look at those three right there. Thinks, feels, decides. Your thoughts create what you feel, your feelings determine what you do. And a decision is what you do. And the decisions form your entire life. It all goes back to the decision. So what do we have to do here? We have to. If we want to live a different life, we gotta go to the root to change the fruit. Now most people are just complaining about their lives. Not here, inside Mom Master University. We're actually doing the very thing, renewing our mind to so that we can change our lives. So we're not going to complain it. Because if you complain, you remain, right. If you complain about it, you're going to keep on having to deal with this. So what we're going to do is we're going to change the fruit of our life. Instead of complaining about the fruit, the money we have, the health we have, the relationships, the relationship with our kids, our home, our, you know, our emotions, our wardrobe, whatever it is. Instead of complaining about the fruit, what we're going to do is let's just change it. And it's really not that hard. Think about this. God wants to bless you, right? He's a good God. He's a good father. He wants to bless you. So why would God make it hard to be blessed as a good parent? And he's a good father. A good parent makes it easier for a child to be obedient. Like when I wanted my kids to learn how to make up their beds, I didn't make it really hard by having a dust ruffle and a flat sheet and, and a quilt. And then you had to put 20 pillows on it? No, I made it simple. Here's a fitted sheet and a comforter. Can you pull it up? Awesome. You made up your bed. Yay. God wants to make it simple. That's why Jesus said that his yoke is simple. It's easy. His burden is light. It's not hard. God would not make it hard to be obedient and to live a life that is absent of stress. So we have to go to the root in order to change the fruit. So instead of complaining about the fruit, let's go to the root, change it. How do you do that? What is the root? Your mind. I remember as a little kid, there's this house near us that had crab apple trees in their front yard. And I'll never forget. I would. I would look at those apples, and they just look so good to me. As a child, I was like, those look delicious, right? Never failed. I think it took about, like, three times, three different years for me to pick one of those crab apples and bite into it until I realized, wow, this is a bad. This is bad fruit. I'm gonna keep on trying it. It looks really good, but it's bad fruit. It's bitter. It tastes horrible. I would spit it out next year. I'd be like, maybe it changed. Nope, it's still a crab apple tree. It's still producing crab apples. That's the way we are with our life. We think. Think that. Let me just continue doing the same thing I always do, and somehow, miraculously, I'm going to get a different result. My marriage is going to be so much better. My kids are going to respect me more. My house is going to get, like, magically decluttered. I'm going to be, like, happier. I'm going to be thinner. I'm going to be healthier. No, you're not. You haven't changed anything. You're just complaining about the fruit. You keep on biting into it, and guess what? It still tastes bad because they're crabapples. So what do we do? We grow a new tree. How do we do this? We go to the root, which is our mind, and we renew our mind. This is why the second key in living a life free of stress in that secret place is empower your soul. I want you to say that where you are, wherever you are right now, out loud. I am empowering my soul. My soul has the power to change my life. I'm empowering my soul. That is so powerful. You can do this. We do this by being hugely intentional with our thoughts. Your soul is powerful. But understand this, the Bible calls it Dunamis power. Now Dunamis power is like a Greek word that means potential power. That's where we get the word for dynamite, right? Dynamite is not dangerous and it's not explosive unless you light it, right? It's when you light the wick that now it explodes. So your soul has power to change your life. Your mind has the power to change your life. But it is dunamis power. It's potential power. How do we light it? We be intentional. We have to become super intentional when with our thoughts. Now most people will try to manage their stress and you can look at that, you can like Google how to manage stress. There's a not even a thousand, there's like millions of tips out there on how to manage stress. Well make sure you like set time for yourself like relax, meditate, drink some chamomile tea or you know all of these strategies, right? There's a lot of strategies to manage stress. Why are we still publishing strategies to manage stress? Because evidently they are temporary. Managing stress is a temporary solution. But one thing we know about God is he is a permanent solution. He is the one and done. He is the final say, right? He is the all sufficient one. So instead of trying to manage stress, we have the power to unlock that secret place where stress is just not a part of our life. Now I want to share this thought with you and I want you to camp out on it for a minute. Stress is an emotional response of your body to a thought in your head. Okay? You know what stress feels like in your body? It might feel tight, might feel like like, like we talked about in part one, like maybe like pain in your stomach, tightness in your body, clenching of your jaw, maybe a tension headache. We know what stress feels like in our body and but we don't always know where it's coming from. Stress, the feeling of stress is just an emotional response, right? All the chemicals coursing through your body to a thought in your head. Now we have to know this because emotions are the language of your soul. It's your mind trying to speak to you and tell you what you're thinking about. How do you know what you're thinking about? Check out your emotional response. Feelings are feedback. Now feelings are not fact and feelings are not your future. Feelings are just feedback. It's there to tell you where your thoughts are. Now what we normally are conditioned to do, and this is conforming to the pattern of this world, is we have an emotional response and then we try to Buffer from it or distract from it, or soothe it in some way. Instead of just becoming super perceptive and looking into it, doing some investigative work, we have to be a detective of our own soul. What are my feelings telling me? A lot of times your, your body's speaking to you as loud as it can and telling you that it's stressing out about something, that you're holding thoughts that are not powerful and productive thoughts. But what typically our strategy is, is we, we kind of close our ears to it, right? We put in like these, like these earplugs and we're like, no, no, I don't want to hear what my body's telling me. I just want to soothe it and, and manage it and feel better, but help. But again, that is a temporary solution. So what if we did this? What if we were super intentional with our thoughts? Think about that. As soon as we're intentional with our thoughts, we've started the renewal process. We're now renewing our mind. We're changing the root, which means we're going to create what different fruit, like plump, juicy, delicious apples that actually are tasty. And you're producing good fruit in your life. Remember, that's what God told us to do, be fruitful and multiply. But that fruit is supposed to be tasty. It's supposed to be like God's marketing plan. We're supposed to be creating fruit in our life that is so amazing that people are drawn into our lives and saying, what are you doing? I want to serve the same God you serve. And that's God's marketing plan. The problem is a lot of believers today are producing gross, yucky, bitter fruit. It's not attractive to the kingdom of God. So we don't like it. Other people don't like it. Let's change it. So too often we just spend energy reacting to the emotions instead of responding appropriately and changing them around. What does it look like to react to an emotional stress? Worry. Worry is now you're spiraling all the thoughts in your head of the worst case scenarios. I want you to think about it. The Bible tells us a lot about our emotional energy. It tells us a lot about focusing our thoughts. As a man thinketh, so is he. So in Joshua 1:8, we're called to meditate on God's word day and night. In first Thessalonians 5:16 routine, we're called to pray without ceasing. So what God is saying is like, look, you're always putting thoughts out there. You're always spending time mentally Considering things, right? There's no, like, pause button on our brain. Even when you're zoning, you're still thinking about something. Even when you're asleep, you're thinking about something. Your mind is always holding thoughts. So let's turn intentionality toward those thoughts and turn them around and make them positive. Because worry, we just. We just kind of worry on autopilot, and worry is actually praying for what you don't want to happen. You're putting emotional energy out there. It's just not a positive emotional energy. And you will create something out of that. Because, remember, the way you think becomes how you feel, becomes what you do. It becomes what you have. You will have negative fruit in your life if you meditate on negative thoughts. So I want you to think about this. Because for moms especially, we have a mom brain now. It gets real. Because worry almost feels like we're doing a good thing, right? We hold worry because so much of our mind, our mom brain, is preoccupied with making sure our children and our environment is safe. It's like as soon as you become a mom and now you have, like, this constant radar spinning around, looking for potential threat. That's why you feel like you can't pay attention for a long time, or you start something and you can't finish it, or you get distracted. Easy. It's not you. It's your brain. You have a mom brain now. With this mom brain comes an extra level of worry. This is why so many moms stress out, because their brain has a natural inclination, natural wiring, to look for negative things in their environment. It's called a negative cognitive bias. We're looking for potential threats all the time. That's why worry feels normal for a mom. We gravitate toward worry because now we're kind of with our negative bias. We're predisposed to it, and it makes us feel as if we're doing a good job as a mom. Think about it. Like, if we didn't worry, there are some moms who would feel like they're not doing a good job as a mom. Because now I'm worried, because I'm not worried. Am I not doing a good job? Am I not being careful enough? Like, worry always almost becomes like a badge for a mom to say, I'm validated. I'm doing enough. But I want you to rethink this, okay? Because we want to go for that life that is absent of stress. And that means we have said no to worry. That means also that we have to feel like we're so Strong enough as a mom that we're validated as a mom and that we're worthy as a mom absent of stress. You don't have to carry worry to be a good mom. You can actually be a better mom by letting worry go and not having anxiety as a part of your life. Because everything. We are called to create the way God creates. And how does God create Imagination? Communication equals manifestation. I want you to think about that for a minute. Imagination plus communication equals manifestation. So what does this look like? Because we are called to be imitators of God, we act like him in this world. So how does that happen? We imagine something, we start talking about it. Then all of a sudden we start putting creative power into practice and into work, and it manifests something in our life. Now what does anxiety do? It causes us to think about the worst case scenario. We start talking about the worst case scenario. All of a sudden, we start creating the worst case scenario. So today, what we're going to do now is empowering our soul is we're going to learn awareness. Think about what you're thinking about and understand this. It's unfamiliar, right? A lot of people aren't used to doing that. It's a practice, but it's one of the greatest skills you can ever have. So I want you to put this into practice. Like this, okay? When you feel stress, first of all, know what it feels like in your body. Think about the thoughts like we did in our first part. Think about the thoughts that preceded it, the images that preceded it. Start writing it down and understand what lack is exposed, what did, what lie did I associate with it? What truth can counteract it? Because now go back to the first part where we talked about it. But this is how we become aware of our thoughts. You can't renew something until you reveal it. Okay? You can't renew something until you reveal it. So what we're going to practice this week is thinking about what we're thinking about. So instead of just saying, oh, I'm stressed, let me react to it. We're going to say, oh, wow, I feel stressed. What was I thinking about? Let me do some investigative work. Let me go deep. What was that truth? What did I make true for me? What did I make it mean? What was the scenario that I was imagining? And then started communicating? And then, oh my gosh, I'm starting to create it now. Nope, go back. Learn how to change the thoughts around. Now. If you want to do this, work on a bigger scale. If you really want to put into practice, get inside Mom Master University. This is where we really do the work. We go deeper. This is where you get the extended podcast and really understand how to put it into practice. Because remember, if you don't do the work, you don't get the results. You are a mom, and investing in your life as a mom is one of the greatest gifts you can ever give to yourself and to your family. Make sure you put into practice. It's time to empower your soul. Lady, I'm excited for you. I love you. Be blessed like crazy. So what about you, Mama? Are you ready to enroll in the only school that will not only change your life, but also your legacy? Go to Mom Mastery University, where we dive deep into the biblical principles that give ordinary moms extraordinary results. Get enrolled today.