Breathe: Soul Care Mentoring with Bonnie Gray

welcome back to another episode of Christian Natural Health today I'm excited to have Bonnie gray with us

Bonnie is a soul care mentor and the author of breathe 21 days to stress less

and transform chaos to calm Whispers of rest finding spiritual white space and

sweet like Jasmine and ecpa 2022 Christian book award finalist having

healed from PTSD Bonnie is passionate about helping thousands of listeners detox stress and flourish and emotional

Wellness with God's love through Soul Care Bible study and prayer Bonnie is a trusted voice writing for proverbs 31

Christianity Today and Relevant Magazine she's also the hosted breathe the stress less podcast

take Bonnie's Soul Care quiz to learn which area of Wellness you're missing at soulcarequiz.com she enjoys hiking and

eating waffles with her husband and two teenage boys in Silicon Valley welcome Bonnie thanks so much for joining us hey

Dr Lauren so happy to be here thanks for having me yeah absolutely so you wrote

about your own stress response during that first year of the pandemic can you tell us a little bit about that story

and how that experience has changed you well you know I just thought that the pandemic was just going to last a little

bit that's what we're all told so I didn't yeah I wasn't even that stressed about it I'm like oh good I don't have

to do like the commuting the driving dropping off the kids to school um but as the week stretched into months

my hair started falling out my body started responding to the stress even

though in my mind I was being very strong you know I have two teenage boys and they're very up and down and my

husband was at home which he never worked from home before and then I actually had a book deadline as an

author um listeners can think of you know fill in the blank whatever it is that you do you know I had to try to do that thing

on top of all the different hats I was wearing and plus everybody was emotionally just

stressing out yeah and I Whistle I was the shock absorber

like as the mom I just felt like I couldn't stress out I couldn't

Express like my own stress so um I just you know

worked hard to get everything done and just go with the flow learn as much as possible while I was you know in fear

myself of what it would mean to get covered and wearing a mask I had to be the one

to go to the grocery store nobody else would it's like right you know so anyhow I guess Dr Lauren I didn't know that I

was so stressed out until my hair started falling out I started getting a rash and so you know I am the Soul Care

Mentor right I have a podcast where I talk about Wellness I've written four

books just like you talked about yeah I know what I should do but

my body was reacting to the stress sure yeah absolutely and it's so interesting that you say that because I see a lot of

specifically good Christian women who have this lay down your cross deny

yourself and follow Jesus kind of a mentality which is all really good but if you do that to the point where you're

internalizing and you're not processing it does come out there's this saying in naturopathic medicine the body weeps

tears the eyes cannot shed and so then it begins to come out in other ways so

um what would you say to someone who thinks that Soul Care is a selfish thing to do how would you respond to them yes

that is the first thing people ask me Bonnie I want to learn about Soul

Care it sounds great but it sounds like it's just self-care it's like so unspiritual secular that's one first

question and second they'll say but I feel guilty I mean I don't I'm already

overwhelmed like for me to just take out time that means somebody else in my family or somebody at church where I'm

doing a Ministry somebody else is gonna have to lose out and so these are the

two main questions with self-care and Soul Care and what I've learned is that the world describes taking care of

yourself as self-care but when we as Believers we do it with

Jesus yes and based on his scripture this is very key

Jesus has come to me those who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest

and it's interesting he doesn't say rest for your body but he says rest for your

soul the soul is very important because the soul is what the psalmist describes as

your inner being the inner person your personality what stresses you what

refreshes you what you like what you don't like and everyone's threshold is different so during the pandemic and

even now post pandemic you know a lot of times we forget that when we are being

strong God gives us the grace so we can take care of everybody else but God doesn't expect us to do that

indefinitely because just like a soldier he doesn't experience panic attacks when he's on

the battlefield when he's being strong taking care of everybody else he experienced panic attacks and his trauma

whether it's emotional or physical when he comes back home when he is safe so I just want to lift

that guilt from our listeners hearts and Minds that you know when we had to be strong we did it and

praise God you did a great job listeners fellow you know brothers and sisters but

God said it's time for you to take care of yourself so whether we're experiencing emotional symptoms of

stress or physical symptoms and stress like me it's it's not that we did anything wrong it's saying you were

strong that's great but now God says come to me you're weary and heavy Lane

and I'll give you rest and that's why it's very unique that's why Soul Care is

is sell excuse me the whole care is spiritual because Jesus is saying I want

you to do what is restful for you yeah yeah and so it's different everyone

has a different um way to relax and so our initial

thought is that it's selfish because we don't get that message we don't get that

message that your Wellness is important your your Wellness is important to God

it's interesting in that same verse come to me those who are weary and heavy light and notice that Jesus doesn't say

come to me positive come to me cheerful come to me without complaints

no it's quite the opposite so emotionally all those things that I kind

of held on to during the pandemic because you know everybody's already so afraid

um it's not appropriate for me to tell my kids okay I'm really afraid too so

what I what we learn is that it's just a natural way of caring and releasing our emotions God has different ways in our

nervous system to release that emotion so as Believers self-care is really Soul

Care it's caring and nurturing the person that God created you to be

totally yeah and I love the the verse that comes that comes to my mind is cast your burdens on him because he cares for

you and um so often I it's occurred to me on a number of occasions that when I

start to feel like I'm overwhelmed and I'm doing too many things maybe I really am maybe there's too many things on my

plate that he hasn't placed there but I also have to stop and remind myself hold on I'm hooked up to an infinite power

source I have all of the energy that I need that he's going to give me

everything I need in order to function I can relax and that even in the moment

even when there's too many things going on I suddenly feel that burden lifted from my shoulders when I'm conscious of

the fact that he's there and you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you absolutely I love that

so and go ahead yeah and that's kind of the three-step Rhythm that I talk about

in breathe because the first step is breathing in God's truth what you're describing

is what is what is the word of encouragement that God wants to give us

personally personally what is that so when you talked about okay cast my burdens on God

he cares for me okay let me let me just talk about what are all those burdens that are on my heart my mind Jesus this

is what's happening so breathing in the truth and then breathing out are stress but then we also want to take action

because notice Jesus says learn from me you know in Matthew chapter 11 when he

says come to me he says learn from me and you will find rest so there's an action we want to take we don't just

stop at reminding ourselves of the truth we want to take action Jesus himself says we need to find rest it takes

action prioritizing what steps can we take that God is saying you know

you can prioritize that time for yourself to take better care of yourself

so give us some ideas like some examples of things that you can do to take care of yourself what are some of your favorites

yeah I think that for emotional rest because there's four different areas and

that's what the Soul Care quiz is for is just we're oftentimes overwhelmed in four different areas emotional Wellness

spiritual Wellness physical wellness and social Wellness each of us are missing

one of those points of Wellness when we're stressed out and so we can very

overwhelmed like well nothing's going to help me but if we know which area that we're experiencing the stressor we can

focus what is the action so for instance when I feel emotionally

overwhelming all those negative thoughts or worries that's emotional Wellness

where we're just all those negative emotions we are taking care of everybody else and yet we cannot share what is

really burdening us one way to relieve that is by

spending time talking to a friend because you know Jesus when he was

sharing that verse he was talking to his 12 disciples so that is something that

was being done together coming together to rest and that's the first thing that

drops off when we're busy we're just doing our to-do list we don't make time

to spend time with people that fill us up right so that is one simple way we got to put

it on the calendar you know what this week is terrible I'm so stressed out okay one response text a friend let's go

for coffee next week maybe this week right now we can't do it you need something to look forward to

studies show that when we have something to look forward to it releases serotonin which is a hormone a chemical that helps

us to lower the cortisol lower the stress in our body and our emotions

so that's the simple way second is I love to journal some people don't feel

like they can Journal is just another thing to add on but if we simply just write down a note

about the things that we're stressed about studies show that when you write

out that list it moves the emotion part of our brain to calm

and it's amazing that doing that will help calm

yes and um I think that one tip if it's like a physical wellness that you're

feeling like gosh I'm just so exhausted here's something interesting there's left brain and right brain anxiety left

brain anxiety gets triggered when we're focusing on problem solving this is what we usually lean into is

what can I do to solve this problem but actually that creates overthinking

what's called negative rumination that's when we can't turn off our worries at night and those can't even sleep or fall

asleep well because those worries just keep filling our minds well the way to turn it off is not by

being harsh with ourselves it's not by telling ourselves stop worrying

this is one of the top ways to increase our stress is when we're

forcing ourselves shaming ourselves criticizing ourselves so the right brain

is where the emotional part of our brain is that's where we feel things that's where our creative self is God created

our right brain to enjoy um listening to music or quietness listening being outside in

nature the right brain is also where we have our all our creative hobbies that are

nurturing so which part of the brain helps us to lower stress

it's not the left brain studies show it's the right brain that most effectively lowers our stress so that's

a general really positive gem I always give to uh people that I do Soul Care

coaching with are people that I'm mentoring on Soul Care is not to think your way out of stress

you need to nurture your way out of stress yeah that definitely makes sense what is something that you enjoy that's

your hobby so for me it's I take a 10 minute walk in the morning I go hiking I never did that before

um you know I was a full-time working person prior to being a mom I think previously that to check another

thing off my list is going to help me but I've learned that no actually all it

does is just bump up more things to add on my checklist but every time I do one there'll be another one that will fill

its place so what I do now is I actually take that 15 minutes in the morning to drive to nearby trail

and I go walking yeah it's awesome so that's one of my practices the other

thing is I love to um play a Chinese instrument called or who it's a Chinese violin and so I

started doing that because when I was having panic attacks I couldn't go anywhere and I was like well I'm at home

so much because I was feeling afraid to go out because my panic attacks were so severe and then God gave me that verse

in Matthew 11 and when Jesus said learn from me I said okay well what's something that I can learn

I learned that when we learn something our brain actually calms down and it

switches off the emotional overwhelm so I said well I played violin when I was in grade school you know I went to

public school there was a program for learning violin I said well I've always wanted to learn this Chinese violin and

so I started taking lessons and I only told myself I'd try it for one month

because you know as a parent we we kind of move mountains to help our children to

enjoy or explore their Hobbies but why is it then when we become grown-ups we feel we don't need any of

that sure yeah so I tried that for four weeks I said I'll try for four weeks and

then I got hooked you're still doing it that's awesome very cool so

um tell me a little bit about what your process looks like for biblical meditation how do you do that and what

is that like how does that compare with secular meditation for example this one is one of the most powerful

go-to's for lowering and stopping anxiety that's the first question I get whenever I go speak women will ask me

Bonnie I'm so stressed out like how do you stop being anxious I want something

right away yeah I'm sure obviously you know we know for healing it's it's a

journey it's a process but something that can help your body right away is biblical mindfulness and the way to

practice it is to do breast work now the secular in our culture right now that's

so popular there's so many podcasts and apps that help you to be more mindful but you know what when I looked at the

word breathe or breath in scripture there's over 1 000 references to breathe

and breath God is the originator of breath work

true and in fact the root word for soul is breath

so one way to activate the body's rest response is to breathe in breathe out

slowly we probably heard this a lot in different articles that we read

in our secular culture but what makes our breathing and mindfulness pop most

powerful is that we have the Holy Spirit so we add a promise from scripture we

breathe in for instance you know when we read Jesus come to me and I will give you rest so we say we

can breathe in Jesus help me exhale so inhale Jesus

exhale help me and so every time we are able to

do this throughout the day when you feel stress grip you breathing in God's word

breathing out his promise another one that I love that you talked about Dr Lauren is

cast your worries on God for he cares for you so we can say

breathe in I cast my worries breathe out

to you and then every time I take a breath every time I exhale I'll name the

worry that's on my heart so this is a breath prayer this is something that I

teach my children here in Silicon Valley it's really really stressful competitive

everything is really focused on performance and my kids have test

anxiety and what has been really powerful is teaching them the breath prayer Jesus breathe in

breathe out help me and I asked them to do it three times before they take the

test just close their eyes nobody knows that you're doing it I say and it helps them it really does help them and it

helps me anytime I have to do something I have an email that's really stressing me out I have to reply I'm not sure how

I will do that breathe in Jesus breathe out help me so this breath

prayer biblical mindfulness is based on scripture and it's bringing God into

your world sometimes we feel like God I feel so far from you why are you not answering my

prayers because we're focused on that left brain we want the answer and yet Jesus he wants to invite us to soul rest

right he wants to calm our emotions he wants to let us know I'm with you he

wants to come into your world so rather than waiting for God to answer our prayer we can just bring him into

our world you know when there's a storm and Jesus gotten to the boat with the disciples

that's what we want to do we want to reach out our hand to Jesus and say Jesus get in this boat it's totally

terrible here the storm's like flashing and I'm stressing out that is casting

our care so this breath prayer is biblical mindfulness and it's so

different from the world's mindfulness like those mantras that secular mindfulness does with just you know I'm

okay I mean those things are true but we want to say I'm okay because you're with

me yeah it's God's word that gives it power as opposed to just something that

you're saying for sure so a lot of times kind of along those lines when I catch myself I'm thinking of all the things

that I have to do I have to do this and this and this and this and my brain is spinning and that usually happens at the end of the day when I'm done seeing

patients and then like when I'm trying to finish up chart notes and stuff I've started this habit of taking five

minutes I set an alarm on my phone close my eyes and I go to my happy place so sometimes I'll do the the scripture

meditation usually if there's something in particular but it's usually Jesus and I go to a beach or we go to the top of

the mountain and I'm just watching everything around me and I notice as as

that happens I can feel the stress leave my shoulders and leave my muscles and I

start to breathe deeper and it's just amazing how that settles everything and also clarifies where then I suddenly

recognize by the time that's done just five minutes what do I have to do what

can I put aside what are the priorities it basically makes that space for the Holy Spirit to speak so yeah I love that

I love that really cool so um how would you respond to somebody who

is really in a place of burnout what what would you suggest for them to try to begin to recover

well one of the and everything that I share for the soul care tips because their soul care not to self-care I

always want to bring in scripture so there's this wonderful story that I love in scripture where a little girl was

lying on her bed everybody thought she was passed away she was because there was no breath there was no breathing

from her and Jesus says no let me come in and he

went into the room sat next to her bed held her hand and by the touch of his hand Jesus says

get up little girl get up little girl and she got up and the first thing that

he said so important Jesus said give her something to eat

yep he didn't say get up and do your homework get up and go do your chores

get him go feed the people outside the crowd that's outside did you know that they have been waiting for you and

they've been doing everything for you you go serve them some water give them some bread no

that's how that's that's often how we treat ourselves we're burned out what do we do we we just work so hard we're

overly responsible and burn out one big cause is called being overly responsible

you know listener are you the kind of person that you know if something goes wrong in the people around in your life

that you love do you feel like you're the one that has to pick up the pieces are you the one that you know is focused

on making sure everybody's doing okay and the cost you you know you don't even think about it well you're not alone

this is the main cause of burnout it's just especially as Believers you know

we're so we want to be loving what I'm encouraging and we forget Jesus says you know you're the first priority

the scripture says Comfort we Comfort others with the Comfort we first receive ourselves yeah and it's not one time

it's a continual living just like a beautiful tree planted by waters you

know scripture describes us as trees they need continuous watering so it's

okay if maybe for a season you you you're just learning now that you need to water yourself that's the soul care

it's nurturing the soil so start now and so burn out one first

place to start is to take time to eat take time to nourish your body it's kind

of a metaphor what is it that your body needs what is it that your body needs you need

to prioritize that so one technique that I talk about in the book is called the

two thing two things list I've practiced myself every morning when

I get up I think of what is the one most important thing I need to do that may be

for others like a responsibility and it's just one now obviously there are

many but if we were just to pick one like okay if I can get this done for

this expectation this is the most urgent and valuable one no it has to take some time second this

is so important what is the one thing that I need for my Wellness today that I

will do one thing so that has two things on there okay one thing for yourself do

something loving for your body or emotions and second is what is something you must do as an expectation and here's

the most important thing the one that's for you needs to be on the calendar first so for instance this morning I knew I

have many different interviews I will need to do today and I said the most important thing I need to do for myself

is that I need to make sure I have something that I can enjoy and be happy

to experience tonight sure so tonight I have a date night with my husband I

scheduled that yes because it's at the end of the week and it's Friday and it's been a tough

week something simple that can be done other than a date night um is that I'm going to have a very nice

lunch somebody might be thinking that I'm actually going to sit down and have a warm lunch and I'm going to sit

outside I'm in California so I can put a little Orca on me and sit outside if it's too cold where you live think of

something else that will be pleasurable to you you can sit have your lunch and be put on your favorite worship song

and it might seem so simple but you know what it's radical rest according to the culture it's almost

because it's so simple and maybe so maybe some people

might think it's silly but because we're doing it with Jesus he is with us sitting next to us I mean

we could see him I always tell our kids that and you talked about this Dr Lauren is using imaginative prayer

yep it's picturing Jesus with us in that happy place

totally and so this is very very important when you're burned out you need to put at the top of the list into

your schedule for that day each day something and it could be one mom said

to me Bonnie I I remember what you told me I was going she has an infant she's

like I was going to go get to the groceries and I saw Starbucks I said I

would like to have a latte yep and she realized that that wasn't just self-care

and the secular you know treat yourself it was Jesus

wanted to buy me a latte God uses our hands right God uses our

hands and feet to bring good news to others but if we don't receive it ourselves how can we be that river

flowing out how can we be a river to others of Peace when we're completely burnt out

now this is not this is not an indictment on anybody it's saying you're worth it you're worthy

so you know picture Jesus what would he say to you that's another technique is

when we're burned out Al-Qaeda I'll guide somebody towards

that happy place you talk about and in that place when you talk about everything that's burning out what would

Jesus want to say to you and it's always something soothing

calming reassuring and the second question I'll say well what what is one thing that Jesus wants

to encourage you to do that is nurturing for you what is that just one thing that would just really nurture you now

and it's in that place of imaginative prayer They will receive that word

yeah so as you're talking I'm thinking of you know the analogy of when you're on a plane and the they tell you when

the oxygen masks drop make sure you put yours on first before you help somebody else because if you're passed out you

can't help anybody else and it's exactly the same thing we have to receive and then we give out of the abundance of the

Overflow that he gives back to us and we should be in that place of overflow so

like we get so blessed that we can bless others as a result of that but um have you read the book's boundaries do you

like those or have you read them before by Henry cloud and John Thompson oh yeah

that was at the beginning of My Soul Care journey I love those I recommend those to so many people so they've got

the boundaries and it's I love the fact that it's also Christian based because so many of particularly as I said

believing women it seems like struggle with this the most um but the idea of I have to do for

other people because that's the selfless thing and then they end up fried like completely burned out and so the idea of

each one of us is supposed to carry our own burdens but we should share each other's loads and the fact that those in

the Greek are different we can carry like the tiny little knapsack that we have over our shoulder but if it's

something that's crushing us that's when other believers need to come around and help you to bear that and recognizing

you know when somebody else is expecting something from you is that actually their responsibility and they're putting

it on you because that's not okay and like trying to to tease those things apart was just so mind-opening for me

and also for a lot of people who struggle I think with this issue to recognize because if you're allowing

other people to put their their loads on you then you are going to end up burned out and being able to distinguish those

kinds of things is kind of part of wisdom in this process I think right so yeah that's a very powerful verse

that you talk about that we are each to carry our own load our own burdens and

one very important part of Soul Care is find out what are the myths

that other people have put on us and unfortunately it's toxic because they

try to twist and put spirituality in it so uh one woman that I'm working with

she is I had said well what's one thing you can take off your plate because she has five kids and she's like Bonnie I'm

exhausted I'm like I would be too yeah you know what can we take off your plate she's like I look at my schedule there's

nothing Bonnie I'm serving on Sunday for children's ministry and then I'm doing scouting on Wednesday I said wait a

minute um okay this Sunday children's ministry you're already doing children's ministry

every day with your five kids I have two kids I'm doing children's ministry even

if somebody has one child we're doing children's ministry I mean does it fill you up on Sunday to serve or do you

leave feeling drained so that's another question we want to ask ourselves if you're burned out what energizes you

what depletes you and if you were to look at that Soul Care account you know what's energizing ads and what depletes

are you coming out negative so she's like oh my gosh yes I'm I'm so exhausted

whenever I you know I get to Sunday I'm like dreading it because I'm already like at the end of my week and then I

have to go she's like but I don't think I should say that right Bonnie I said no why not I said Jesus knows how you're

feeling I said take that off and so we crafted an email I helped her because

that's scary we don't have that language we only hear language of serve use your

talents or else God will take it away and by the way that's a myth and I can come back for another show but that's a

myth and so I said we're gonna write this email keep it simple uh God is prompting me to

um stop the season of serving in children's ministry I realize I'm spread too thin and so I won't be able to

continue but I will serve until the end of this month good excellent and that's it

so we pray together and um you know I share this example because

many women are listening right now they're like oh my gosh Bonnie I would love it if I could just let go of this

what is this one thing that you would love to let go Jesus comes beside you and says

it's okay to rest and I think so often the Lord leads us

by our peace follow your peace if you have peace about continuing something that's probably him if you want to do it

the more time you spend with him if your peace grows and you feel good about it then that's probably the Lord if you

feel dread and you pray about it and you feel more dread it's probably not him

so absolutely and I think so often many of like well-meaning churches yes

service is good but at the same time I think that message as you're saying can

get distorted to a lot of people who believe oh I must do this this is what a good

Christian would do and it becomes a check box but it's not necessarily something that God had asked you to do

maybe it is I mean certainly service is a good thing but yeah it's an individualized thing I love that I'm

glad you brought that up so yeah it's interesting you know the word gratitude the root word is Grace

and the root word of Grace is gift so it is a gift to you first whatever it is

that God wants to inspire you to share with others it is first a gift to you we

love others Jesus says freely you have received that freely you can give we

skip over the freely that we receive we we forget this is a continuous

receiving of God's grace continuing receiving this gift and if you're in a season where you're having to give a lot

for instance work is stressful maybe we've lost our job maybe we're hit with fibromyalgia our body is just like at a

crawl maybe um our kids right now in a season um they are just needing extra work

because it's tough for them and you're already expending that Soul Care account

okay then it's time to stop other areas where you're having to be drained so

that we can get filled because you want to receive the gift of peace and joy first

you need to refill that peace and joy first and then you can release it to the

other people around us and by the way the church is God's people it isn't only

a community and so your community right now is perhaps your family and that

community may be just yourself because Elijah himself was burned out

and God said just lie here and sleep let me bring you some water let me bring you

some food and we don't realize before Elijah heard from God that quiet whisper he actually

had spent more than 40 weeks in a place of doing nothing except rest Rejuvenation and

being away from everybody sounds good so Tyler

technique is if somebody catches themselves in a place of rumination what do they do

well the stop technique is that we first want to be able to stop and to breathe

we want to build our minds and we talked about this in our podcast already that we want to be able to stop and to

breathe to fill our mind with what God is saying to us and then we can do our

breath work we can relax and breathe into that that is the one technique where we can stop

and this can be as we're washing the dishes a lot of times we hold that tension we don't even realize

you know for me I hold my attention my shoulders where do you hold your attention nearly everybody does from

what I've seen yeah like right here the traps yes so the minute we stop we

become aware how am I feeling okay first of all second

then we do our breath work we have God's word to pray

and just release to him as we're breathing in and breathing out and it's so important that we can name

those stresses so a lot of times we may just talk about you know what we tell ourselves you know

trust in God but we want to trust him by releasing our worries the name the thing

that is bothering us and that can be our exhale so that stop technique is part of

stopping that negative rumination and then breathing out

so is there anything that I have not

I think the main thing that is just a word of encouragement is that

God wants us to rest and this is a top priority

yeah and we just don't hear that enough with our body it's just a like a

flashing dashboard on the car it's time for you to take care of yourself and that's why I'm so passionate because

I never understood before how important it was that God

wants us to First receive his peace and joy and I was so focused on

taking care of others focused on getting things done not because I didn't want to

relax but I didn't know how I think that's the main thing I would share as a

last word of encouragement is that many of us have gone through our childhoods and we picked up messages

about what's important and so my mom she wasn't a loving mother

and I think a lot of women struggle with things that are like that whether it's

the father or your maybe it's your sibling I don't know where it is that

we picked up that message that your only valuable or important if you can do

something for me and it it's it could be the church that

we grew up in and so I think that it's important us to release any sense of shame or guilt When we struggle with

anxiety panic attack depression because it just means that

you need more love you need more care it doesn't mean there's something wrong

with you and so I think that was my big aha moment because I I didn't want anyone to

think that my faith was flawed I didn't want somebody to think that my thinking was wrong because those are the

things that as I grew up my mother would always criticize me about

oh you're not trusting God or second you know what's wrong with you why are

you thinking like that and so we picked those messages up and they become our own internal critic yeah so when I'm

most stressed that's what I usually say to myself what's wrong with you Bonnie stop thinking this way

and that had been my Approach towards faith God helped me to think correctly

help me to stop this you know bad thinking and it wasn't until my body

started showing the stress that God was saying to me and Jesus his voice no dear

one your thinking is fine what you need is to experience my peace I want you to

start taking better care of yourself Bonnie I want to ask you what do you

enjoy what do you like to do what can make you filled with joy or peace what's

comforting to you these are all questions that no one has ever asked me before yeah

and so maybe those that are listening this might be the first time you're considering it what would give me

Comfort what would give me joy what would refill my tank and maybe nobody

has ever asked you that and you thought well that's just for kids I would say Jesus said

don't keep these children from me in fact the greatest in my kingdom is

having faith as a child so this is the path to Wellness is really our identity as a child as a

little girl or a little boy with Jesus Jesus wants to take care of us but he

can only do it through our hands and feet so that would be my last encouragement is that you are worth it you are that

little girl in God's arms that he wants to hold and encourage and as we're grown

up in our faith we are adults now so that means we can do those things that we missed out on we can learn

to experience on those things that maybe somebody else had taken from us or had

wounded us and they are important to God you are important to God

so as you're talking I'm thinking of the story of Mary and Martha where Mary sits at his feet and listens to him where

Martha is busy doing all the serving and all the tasks and she it thinks that

Mary's being lazy and tells Jesus to tell her like come help me but he says she chose the better thing she chose the

better way absolutely beautiful beautiful where can people go to find out more about you

yes please join me first take the Soul Care quiz at soulcarequiz.com when you

take that quiz you'll be able to get a chance to uh join my newsletter and this

is a soul care newsletter you'll get a tip every week on Soul Care in a scripture that will just strengthen your

heart you can listen to my podcast at breathe the Stressless podcast and pick

up my new book it's a book where I put 21 stressors and solutions that you can

use to overcome moments of stress anxiety go to the breathebook.com

thebreezebook.com so pick it up because we're going to do um a book club I'll be leading every

week for us to learn how to do practice Soul care because you know it takes encouragement you know no I I didn't learn this in a vacuum I had other

people on my path that helped encourage me and so now I want to encourage you so go to thebreezebook.com and sign up for

joining that Weekly zoom and a Facebook group if if you want to do the Facebook group but

um thank you Dr Lauren for inviting me so that I can share this message to more women that are looking for Relief and

flourishing in wellness it's it's my life message because God helped me and I just want to share and help as many

people as God puts on my path so well thank you so much and I will put in the show notes the links to all of those

things and thanks for everything that you had to share Bonnie really appreciate it thank you it's so easy to

talk with you and um God bless you in your ministry are you looking for a holistically

minded Healthcare practitioner who truly treats root cause rather than symptom suppression unfortunately even in the

alternative healing professions this isn't a given that's why I've created wholehealthdoctor.com a resource to help

connect patients to Health Care practitioners in their area who share a root cause philosophy alternatively most

of the practitioners listed also practice Telehealth so if there isn't anyone local to you you can still find a

great practitioner to help you regain Optimal Health go to wholehealthdoctor.com that's whole

healthdr.com type in your location or adjust the specialty that you're looking for and find the practitioner who's

right for you

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