358 - Becoming Authentically You (Women's Takeover)

Welcome to the Pure Desire Podcast, helping you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal trauma. Hey, I'm your host, Ashley Jamison, and you're listening to episode 358 of the Pure Desire Podcast, Women's Takeover. And we get to take over the podcast studio today because we have a brand new resource that's out and available now called Authentically you here joining me as always is my co host, Heather Kolb.

I am so excited to be here because we're here to to talk about our brand new resource for single women. It's called Authentically you Managing Love, Sex and Relationships for Single Women. And we've been working on this probably for. What would you say? I think that we've been working on it for maybe the last year or so, just getting all the content written and making sure that we have, you know, applicable stories and all the great tools that we love to really walk women through their initial journey of healing, especially when they struggle with, you know, pornography or masturbation or hookups or really almost anything that they struggle with.

So I know we're going to get questions from people from pastors and leaders and women like, who is this for? What's in it? And that's what we dive into in this episode. Exactly who we created this for, what woman would want to go through this, how long it is, and what resources we put in it. So the episode really just dives in. And I think if you're somebody who's wondering if this would be a good resource for you or a friend or somebody, you know, this would be the episode for you.

All right, let's get into our episode about Authentically youy, our new resource for single young adult women who are struggling.

Okay, Heather, this is so fun to get to take over the boys Podcast studio again and talk about our newest resource for young single women.

I'm so excited. I know this is going to be one of our best resources that we've ever put out.

I know I have actually said that a few times just because, you know, we only can put a resource out every, you know, so many years or like, this is our first resource we've done for adult single women. But just the knowledge that we've gained from taking classes and taking trainings and reading and absorbing information and then our practical experience helping women and then our own experiences now, you know, our kids are older and your kids are starting to have kids. And so just being able to compile all that new knowledge and put it in a resource, it does make me feel like it's our best one yet.

Yeah, it's going to be so, so great for women. So let me ask you, our first question is who is the target audience for authentically you?

Every woman that takes a breath. Well, it's 18 and up and we, I think we, when we were originally designing this because we have our living free for college age guys, we, we originally were thinking we need something for the girls, we need something for college age young women, you know, which, that, that Target audience is 18 to 25. But as we were writing it, we were realizing really any woman who's been single, especially for the person that's been singled and either never married or maybe they don't have kids, you know, because women who are singled can also go through unraveled. But as we were writing this one, we realized, yes, we designed it for the younger single person. But I'm thinking I really could have benefited from this even after I was married, just to go back and process some of those younger single years and put my mindset in those years when really some of my patterns started. If you're an older person and you've never been married, this could apply. But yeah. So I mean, if I was to give one answer, I would say this is for the younger college age woman, but any single woman would benefit from this.

Yeah. And I think that part of this, even when we started planning for this resource, it just seemed like the more research we did, the more we dug into the information so the more we started to recognize that, you know, women are staying single even longer now. And so and I think that the national average for the first, first time marriage for women is 30 years old. And so I just think that there's a lot of great information in this that is going to help a single woman navigate those years before marriage or even if she doesn't get married.

Yeah. And from my work with women in my unraveled groups that are in their 30s or late 20s and they're single, it's so hard for them because they're, they're wanting to be married, they're wanting to be sexual and they're saying, what does this even look like? Is it even okay to have these discussions? And then I had a pastor ask me, would this be okay for some high schoolers because he worked with a lot of youth. And my answer is yes, but with anybody under the age of 18, you're going to need their parents to sign the memo of understanding. Or for me, what I like to do with working with youth is have a Night where parents can come learn about the resource. They could even flip through it and you can talk about what are the things that we would disclose to you if your kids shared them in our, you know, in our study and what things would we just let this be a safe area for the kids to process. In my experience, the parents have really appreciated that because they've known their kids have had a safe place. And in, in what kids are dealing with ninth grade and up there could for sure be girls who are struggling with sexually acting out pornography, masturbation, all those things. And so you may have high schoolers that you could take through this, but just make sure to get that memo of understanding and make sure it's for the high schoolers that are actively struggling. This isn't the resource that you just introduced to the whole youth group.

Right. Because it isn't something, it isn't necessarily geared toward what you would call maybe like purity information or just sexual health. It is definitely for women who have crossed boundaries, but just want to figure out what it looks like going forward to live in health and yeah, and.

The reason why I say that I think any woman could go through it is, you know, yes, it's for the young, single 18 to 30 year old woman, but the reason why I think any woman could go through it, especially if you've been through Betrayal beyond, maybe you've been through Unraveled and you want something new that might bring new insights. That's what happened to me when I was on a plane and I was looking through our behind the Mask resource for younger teenage girls. And I was just kind of refreshing my mind on my answers that I wanted the teenage information to be fresh. On the way down to this youth conference, the one we did in Florida with all the youth and that so many things started clicking for me that I had processed in my adult resources and then when I went back to do the teen resource, it was like that's where it started. And I was able to just like really connect these dots and, and that's why I think going to some resources and putting yourself in that mindset of how was I behaving in relationships when I was 20 years old? Because even if you're a 45 year old woman still struggling with relationships, you're probably going to have a lot of insight going back to those early years of interacting with men or, you know, yes, men. So what information is covered in authentically you?

So this resource has a lot of my favorite tools and a lot of the tools that we use in A lot of the group resources at Pure Desire, so it's going to have the weekly faster scale that we introduced right from the beginning, because that's really a core tool that we use. And it's really helpful if we can just get started right away. And. And then it also has, like, going through their thoughts and feelings and being able to do their group check in and, you know, have a new commitment to change every week. But then more so in the curriculum, it kind of walks them through this process of understanding why it is that I'm here. Why is it that I'm right here right now, struggling with porn or masturbation or hookups or whatever it is. But really in order to answer that question in a way that's going to make sense going forward is to look at other things in your past that have contributed to either areas of trauma or woundedness, all of these different things, because we can't fix something unless we know where it comes from. And so a lot of it is just walking through that process. And most of the time it's building on stuff that we've learned in previous weeks. And in fact, there is some other issues that are things like, you know, setting boundaries and our identity, establishing our identity in Christ and family of origin. Issues that tend to show up frequently in the curriculum because we don't want to just talk about something one time and then just leave it there, because that's really not going to be helpful in the long run. But it's more of understanding that if I experience this type of trauma in my family of origin, but now in adult relationships, I'm struggling to even connect with other people, or I'm struggling with other men, or I keep having first dates but never a second date. You know, a lot of that family of origin trauma and experiences are going to really help to explain why it is that we do what we do.

Right. Yeah. One thing that I like is how relatable the stories are to what girls are struggling with. And I think there's all that 10. There's always that tension of, at least for me, like, as bold as I am in my language, there's still a tension of are we going to offend people? You know, is this. Is this too blunt? Because we know from talking with so many people that girls are struggling with sexual acting out, that women are struggling with pornography, affairs, and those kinds of things. And so if we don't talk about it, we're not able to help them. And I like that in these, in authentically, you. We were just really bold with the stories. And. And they may not all be something that the reader or the woman going through it relates to, but there's probably one or two stories where they needed to hear that because they need to know that we've helped people like this and we are those people something, you know, a lot of the times, and that there is hope. And. And we're not afraid because we get women that come and they're like, well, I don't know if you'll be able to help with my issue or mine's extra bad or I'm extra weird. And. And no, no, no, you're not weird. You're not bad. You're normal. And even though these things are common, you know, it doesn't mean that they're helpful to you, but they're very common and we can talk about it and it's safe to talk about it. And one of my favorite stories in Unravel just kind of shows the progression of our behaviors of, like, not knowing where, you know, the leak is coming from. We've talked about trading addictions, being like a whack, a mole, where the girl is. Is looking on social media and she's triggered by something because her best friend is off doing something with somebody else. And. And so she starts scrolling to feel better, and then she ends up looking at porn and relapsing. So then she's like, okay, I'm not going to do that anymore this week. I'm not gonna look at. I'm not gonna look at social media because it led me to a bad place. But without knowing where it's coming from or replacing it with something healthy, she gets home and that deprivation of, like, I don't have social media causes her to want to eat. And then she overeats, and then she doesn't like the way she feels, and so then she throws it up. And now it's leading into eating disorder. And it's just this cycle, which is very realistic when. When you're not swapping things out with a healthier behavior or understanding. Way back here, when you first initially saw the image of your best friend doing something with somebody else that hurt you, Recognizing and dealing with those feelings rather than letting it just spiral and continue to shoot out sideways in these other areas. And. And I. And that, I think, is my favorite part about these resources.

So is that what you would think, what you would say is unique about authentically you.

Yeah, it is. Because, you know, As a young 20s, you know, I was a teenage mom. I got pregnant my senior Year in high school. But before that I really, really loved the Lord all the way From, I mean 8 years old is when I got baptized. And I genuinely have always loved the Lord but it was like, okay, this is how I'm supposed to be at church. And I got baptized in like a fundamental Baptist church. You know, everybody wears skirts and things. I don't think I ever wore a skirt. But I was just like that wild hair little girl coming on the bus. But I loved, loved the Lord. And then at school I had all my school friends and none of them really went to church. And so it was like I had two different lives. My parents were a little disengaged because they're, you know, we didn't go to church as a family. And I just never could figure out how to meld the two worlds. And it was very confusing. And it wasn't until I got married for the second time after all this trauma like rape and sexual curiosity and my own disorders and my own love addiction, betrayal, getting married, it not working out because you know that I just keep trying to do all the things the church tells me to do and it's just white knuckling and then it falls apart and. And then I'll try to do what the church tells me to do and then it falls apart. And I could only really hold it in for a year and then I would find myself in the same situation or worse. And so when I ended up discovering my husband's pornography addiction and going through his resources, I was like, why are these resources so applicable to me? And that's exactly what I needed to start healing my past is I needed somebody to tell me what God says about it and what I truly believe in my heart as my core beliefs about God and how to line that up with why do I keep doing these things I don't want to do and help me make sense of that. And when I learned about the neuroscience and I learned about addiction and I was able to couple that with the scripture, it's like this whole new world opened up for me to heal. And then that's what you and I have done is just taking what we know. Your education, my experience, our history of working with women and really trying to bring a resource that meets those needs in a holistic, well rounded way.

Yeah. And I think that that's probably one of my favorite things about authentically youy is that we do put in the self care that's every single week. And you'll spend two weeks on the same self care and just Doing something different with it. Because I think that's one of the things that's interesting about women who struggle is that we don't take good care of ourselves. We are the last person and sometimes we are taking care of everybody else, but we're the last person that we take care of. And so just really kind of drilling down on the importance of sleep and having good nutrition and having exercise and even being able to set boundaries and to tell people no, you know, that it's okay if you don't want to do something or you're, you know, you're. You don't have enough capacity for it to just lovingly be able to tell people no, because it's really good for your physical and mental health. And so it kind of takes people through that process, which I really love that.

Right. And you know, I never realized how I. I'm like an Energizer Bunny and so I tend to burn the candle at both ends until I crash. Shocker. I did not understand the importance of like good food, good sleep. It. It's like you're setting yourself up. And I think I've used this picture before in one of my talks. Like a marathon runner wouldn't be eating cheeseburgers and running in flip flops. Yes, you have to do the running and you're the one who has to run the race. But at the same time, having the right shoes, getting enough sleep, eating the right things is going to make all the difference. And I didn't realize by not getting the right sleep, not having the right self care, not having the right environment to process these things out loud was really contributing. It was like draining my ability to make good decisions in this other area. And, and so just a reminder that it's not just for the woman who has a relationship issue or sexual addiction, but for the. The girl who is very scared of relationships or avoids it or is sexually anorexic or you know, just fears it. So whatever side of the spectrum you're on that this is just for relational and sexual health for anybody.

So you've mentioned Unraveled and Behind the Mask. And now we have our new resource, Authentically youy Coming. What would you say is kind of like the core difference between those?

So behind the mask, I would say if the age keeps changing, parents and youth leaders use discretion. But I think a girl 12 to 13 year old could. 13 years old could probably start that. So maybe 12 to 13, up to 18. Of course, with all of our resources, I really like to say like 12 years old to 99 because I firmly believe that any of her resources, they take you back to that spot in time. You know that when I was a 15 year old girl and it fills in so many gaps and gives you so much information. But 12 to 13 to 18 and that resource, even though we do get very specific with, with sexual like explanations and stories, I think that one is better for trying to introduce authentic identity, living a healthy sexual life just in general. You could take a group of young teenage girls and just say skip the parts that don't apply. But we're going to just create conversation here and we're going to create good awareness about ourselves about maybe areas where we might slip up or be more tempted and we're going to create good boundaries and good plans. And so that one really could be for the youth group leader to take a small group of girls for or for the mom to buy something for her teenage, young teenage daughter and go through those answers and, and share the answers from when you were her age just to set the tone that it's okay, I understand what it feels like to be a 14, 15 year old girl and the struggles and then unraveled we created for really adult women. So some of our, a lot of our stories are geared toward the married woman and, or a woman that might have kids and, and like you had said, all of our resources have those same good core tools unravel. It's going to be longer and it really just feels more like for the woman who's had some more life experience like marriage and kids and then authentically you of course is what we've talked about the single person that maybe hasn't been married yet and still kind of figuring out what relationships look like. Heather, can you kind of explain what the group structure looks like for this? Just the nuts and bolts of the resource.

So this one is going to follow our same, the same group guidelines that we use for a lot of our other resources. So you're going to meet once a week, it's going to be two hours long. You're going to go through the lesson, you're going to go through the weekly tools which is like your faster scale, commitment to change, self care, those kind of things. But then also this one we wrote Authentically youy specifically for that single young single woman. And so because of that the content is a little bit shorter and There's a part one and a part two and there's 10 lessons in each one. So this, the full curriculum is 20 lessons. And so you easily could do it even if you're a career woman and you have a busy schedule, you can adapt it to your schedule. If you are a college student and so you're on like a semester system, you can easily adapt it to that as well.

I love that about this resource too because you can really just grab a couple of friends and start going through this resource together. Because it's just creating an environment where you can talk these things out in a safe way and you don't have to be an expert. You can just grab some friends and start going through this resource together. And you'd get a lot out of it just doing it that way too.

Yeah. And especially if it's something that maybe you're not even absolutely certain what's in the content, but it's more about. You know what, I'm curious about this. I'm curious about how this is gonna impact my life. And can you guys just go through it with me? Not because you struggle in a significant way, but just because you want to pursue a life of sexual health? Yeah, I think that can be really beneficial. So what excites you about getting authentically you out into the world?

1. The COVID is so cute.

It is so beautiful.

I know. I'm really excited because as the group's director, I have worked with women who run like sex trafficking ministries where women are coming out of sex trafficking. I've helped bring resources down to my own local union Gospel mission where women are in like an 18 month program. They live there, worked with the youth group, have had girls at my house doing unraveled and then have run online groups here at Pure Desire. And I just think this is 20 weeks is totally doable for anybody. The way that the curriculum is written is very self explanatory. We have our weekly tools. You have the curriculum that helps, you know, dig up things and process it and connect dots. And so I just feel like it's a really accessible resource that anybody could start off with. If you don't know where to start and you're a woman new to Pure Desire, this would be a great resource for you to start with.

It would be. And especially because I think that there are, I mean it just seems like as women we're really busy, but just because you could be a working, you know, somebody who has a 40 hour plus job, or you could be a college student and, and still fit it into your schedule and also be able to create a little time in your day, like a half an hour each day that you spend on the homework. It does seem like it's really adaptable.

Yeah. I will hear women that go through our female, you know, struggler resources and they'll say, this kind of ruined me for other Bible studies because they're finally getting an environment. They're finally in an environment where they can talk about the things they thought they would never share with anybody. The things that caused them to feel shame, the things that might secretly make them feel disqualified from this ministry opportunity, or the thing that when the conversation gets too close to that subject, they are like backing away because they don't want anybody to know that. And I remember being that teenager saying like, okay, we're having the talk, you know, the, the once a year sexual talk at church on purity and just feeling so ashamed. Had I known there was just even like three other people in the church where I could have this safe place to say, what does it look like to live in a world that's so hyper sexualized and be able to have a safe place to talk about this? Because it's a constant and real struggle. And so I just think that women are going to enjoy that space. It's not going to feel like homework. It's going to feel like this is my space. I get to process being a human being in this world, especially as a single, which can be extra hard to know what that looks like to have sexual health.

Yeah. And again, it does follow all of the same things that all of our other Pure Desire resources do. That it's going to have the science and it's going to have the brain parts and it's going to have, you know, statistical data, but then it's all laid over a foundation of biblical truth, which I love that.

Me too. Okay, well, I'm really glad we got to be on here. Take over the Pure Desire podcast and share with women about our new resource. So if this sounds like something that you want to go through, you do, go to PureDesire.org and you can grab it and the link will be in the show notes. Wherever you're at on your journey, Pure Desire is here to help you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal, trauma. If you or someone you know needs recovery and healing, go to PureDesire.org and begin the journey today. If you like this episode or are a fan of the podcast, please share it with others and make sure to check out the full episode on YouTube as well. And lastly, never stop being healthy.