I CHOOSE MY BEST LIFE

In this episode, Dr. Tope Keku joins me to discuss how we can choose to trust God when we face bitterness, unforgiveness, and resentment in our relationships.

Take Dr. Tope's Healthy Marriage Quiz.

Get your copy of Weathering Storms: Finding Treasures in the Ruins.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome everyone. This is Dr. Saundra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life, where today we're going to be chatting about trust in our marriage. How do we get over hard situations? How do we keep staying faithful to the one we said yes to? And I have with me today Dr. Tope Keku, who is a certified life and marriage coach, as well as an author, speaker, and Bible teacher.

To help us with this journey so that we can stay faithful, even during times of difficulty. Tope, welcome to the show.

Dr. Tope Keku: Thank you, Dr. Sandra. Thank you for having me

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: here. I know most of the time when someone writes a book or goes deep into a topic, there's usually some backstory to it. So I'd love for you to begin by sharing a little bit about who you are and your journey in this topic.

Dr. Tope Keku: Okay. So a little bit of a back story about me is that I am a child of God. And I'm passionate about helping women find their way out of these terms of life. And how did I get to this place? A little bit is that I am from Nigeria. Originally, I was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. I grew up in a Christian home, always known the Lord since I was a child, I've always known the Lord.

But at age seven, I gave my life to Christ. And this will make sense in a minute. So I just need to give you a little bit of this backstory so you can understand where I'm coming from. I gave my life at age seven, was raised in a Christian home, and always had a relationship with the Lord.

There's never a time that I can remember that I haven't had a relationship with the Lord. One thing that sets that relationship about is that when I was four years old, I started to have dreams and visions, and I would share them with my parents. And when I shared those dreams and visions my parents did, I didn't understand what they meant.

But they would. Take it seriously. They would help me. And this kind of taught me to nurture that. So that became what began my relationship with the Lord one-on-one. And then seeing my parents for us to model that. Daily living in faith was a backdrop to where I am today as a Christian and as a child of God.

Now, fast forward to my marriage. My husband and I came to the U. S. from Nigeria. We went to school here. Both of us went to graduate schools here. And we got involved in the American life. Just, the good old American life taking care of family, running daily, working hard, trying to make ends meet, all of that.

But we lost something vital in relationships. And that's connection. We lost that. And so as we lost that, that became then a bone of contention, a lot of arguments, a lot of back and forth, and just the peace was out the window. And so, for me, where my comfort is in the Lord. So that's why I needed to give you that background.

So I went back to the Lord. And I said I don't understand what is going on here. And because we had hit this crisis point where it was constant tension, I decided to leave for two weeks. And as I left for two weeks, it wasn't just, I'm done. I'm out of here for me. It's, I want to gain clarity. My heart is always towards the Lord.

What do you want to do here? What are you doing here? And so, while going away for two weeks, I was fasting, praying, reading the word, listening, and asking the Lord a lot of questions. And in that process, he began to show me what would happen. What would happen? If I trusted him, and the question he asked me was, will you trust me?

And you might say, did you hear him audibly? No, I didn't hear him audibly. I didn't hear audibly, but he came to me again. The way he speaks to me is in dreams. He came through two dreams. The first dream was in that dream. I saw a road. It was a paved road. It looked beautiful. But then suddenly, there was a big break in the road.

And it was, I was like, how am I even going to cross? So I'm standing there thinking, how will I get to the other side of this? This is terrible. This is a mess. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, I saw these big, heavy trucks coming, and they began to fill in the roads. They began to repair it. And then I woke up.

And when I woke up, I said, Lord, what does this mean? Are you trying to tell me that you will repair my marriage? If I will trust Jesus, what are you saying? I still didn't get a clear answer, but I had a sense that this was where he was bleeding. And then, if that wasn't enough, he showed me in his second dream, what again, where his heart is in all of this.

And in that second dream, I saw a big body of water, and in that big body of water, there was a big snake. If you know me, I do not like snakes. I don't know about you, but I do not like snakes anywhere. This snake was huge. It was huge around like a truck. It was as big as a truck, and it had many colors and many layers to it.

And this snake was moving, you know, when they say as slow as molasses? This snake was moving ever so slowly, coming towards me. And I was like, Lord, please make it go away, make it go away. And then suddenly, it turned ever so elegantly, if you can say something like that, ever so elegantly turned around and started moving away.

Then my son came and threw a rock in the water, and the snake again did that like he was going to turn and look towards me, but then changed his mind and then just continued to go away, and then I woke up, and I was like, Lord, wow, what are you saying? And then I heard again in my spirit, not audibly, but in my spirit, will you trust me?

This situation is bigger than yours. It's not even about you. But will you trust me to walk with you through it? My word didn't say that you would not have any trouble. It didn't say that you will not have trials. It said that even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will walk with you.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Amen. I love how you bring in your relationship with God and even how you process with God because I think sometimes we forget to inquire of the Lord in our situation, so I love how you bring in the dreams and just how he speaks to you. One of the things I think that's so important is, I, there's Most of us who are married have had those moments in our relationship when hard stuff happens and when it happens, depending on kind of our own personality and how open we are to correction and to being able to listen to how Holy Spirit is leading us. That can sometimes play such a big role. When you talk about trusting God, what does that mean to you Exactly.

Dr. Tope Keku: Wow. Trusting God is fundamental. It's trusting God means I believe that He is who He says he is, that He will do what He says He will do that even if I have my doubts and my questions, which of course I did have, so I will not lie to you, I had a lot of questions, but it's bringing them to Him.

And one of the things that really helps me is David. David in the Psalms. Look at Psalm 13. David is not sugarcoating what he's feeling, what he's thinking, what he's going through. How long, Lord? How long will you forget me here? And so if David, who is the man after God's heart, could Ask those fundamental questions.

It gave me freedom. I found freedom in the Psalms to be able to come to the Lord with my questions. Lord, I've worked with you for a long time. I've known you. I've served you. I've done all this. Why are you still letting all these things happen? Why is all this going on? What are you doing here? But then the Lord brought me to this place.

You're asking the wrong question. So good. It's not why. Ask me what I am doing in this situation.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I Want to go deeper into that because you talk about, when all of this was going on with your marriage, you took a moment to step back. Which, some people will say you should stay put and try to work it out.

But I think there's some wisdom sometimes in putting a little bit of separation so that you don't keep escalating the toxicity. Sometimes, you have to work on yourself for a minute before you can work on us as a couple. Yeah. So, when you took that time to step away, what did God show you during that time?

And how did you progress after he asked you that question? Do you trust me?

Dr. Tope Keku: Yeah, that's a very good question. While I was going away for those two weeks, I reached out to a really good friend. I don't have a lot of friends, but I do have a few close friends.

So, I reached out to one particular friend that I know. I can trust her with this situation, and I can trust that she hears the Lord's will. So I reach out to her, and I say, Hey, listen, here's what's going on. Do you mind praying along with me? And whatever the Lord tells you, do not lie to me.

You come back and tell me what you're hearing. And so half that time, while I was fasting and praying, she was also fasting and praying along and praying. And then she called me one day. She says, talk by, I'm not hearing that you should leave your marriage. What I'm hearing is you should stay put and trust the Lord.

So that was confirmation. So I, then I thanked him. I said thank you for sharing that because you just confirmed what the Lord's shown me, and this is how he's shown me. And then the next part, once, once I got that confirmation, it was like, ok

Caris Snider shares how we can choose to find sacred pauses even in the car line while waiting to pick up our kids.

Connect with Caris on Facebook and Instagram.

Get your copy of Car Line Mom.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Saundra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today, we are going to talk about how we enter the presence of God, even when we have a lot going on, especially if you're a mom with kids and you're transporting them all over the place. I have Caris Snider with me today, the author of a new devotional called Car Line Mom. I want us to talk about that because I feel like there are certain seasons in our lives where it seems impossible to break away and find time for God. But there are always opportunities. Caris, thank you so much for joining me.

Caris Snider: Thank you for having me today. I'm excited to be here.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I Want to start just by learning a little bit about you. You wrote a book. With a title that I adore because it brings back so many memories of sitting in that car line. I just want to know a little bit about your background. Tell us a little bit about who you are and your family.

Caris Snider: Absolutely. So, I am a car line mom. I have two daughters. I have a daughter. We are in high school. We have entered into that season of life as well. She's a ninth grader. And I also have a daughter who is in fifth grade. So we have a teen and a tween if you will. So we are absolutely in the car a lot going and coming.

My husband and I, Brandon, have been married for 19 years and we live in the great state of Alabama. I have practically literally lived here my whole entire life. So if you hear that accent, everyone, yes, I am. It's that Southern drawl, if you will. But we love living here. We even have a little mini golden doodle.

He's a part of our family as well, but I graduated from the University of Alabama with a child development degree. Over the past few years, I have been speaking and writing and just sharing my own journey with moms and with teens and with any generation that needs to know, Hey, your faith and mental health go together.

God cares about it. And there is hope. And so to have this opportunity to write about it, to encourage our moms who are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, I am just thankful how God, never wastes anything and how he's brought everything together. For good in my life. So that's a little bit of me and who I am and what I do.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I really wanted to speak with you because I feel like you, you truly get it. And I think that for a lot of us when we approach motherhood, we approach it with a can-do attitude, which is good. We need some of that to be able to persevere, but we also, I find, sometimes we. Almost forget in the process as we're nurturing other people that we have to be nurtured as nurturers of ourselves.

We have to keep that part of ourselves that can reflect on our own needs and the places where we need to be restored and where we need to seek help and assistance. There was a study that you mentioned from a 2023 state of Motherhood survey. And it said that it revealed that the top source of worry for mothers is mental health concerns.

Share a little bit about why that's concerning.

Caris Snider: I think that's concerning because mothers are aware of this mental health crisis that we have going on, not just for our Children and our teenagers, but for ourselves. They are struggling to find those safe places where they can talk to you about what they're struggling with and what they're going through.

I think, for our moms for all of us. We put this expectation of perfection on ourselves to get it right. When those sweet babies are put into our hands, we leave the hospital to know all the answers, to know what to do, and we just don't know. And then we put ourselves on the back burner and we give everyone the steak, the mashed potatoes, the good salad.

And then we give ourselves the leftovers, and moms are seeing. This is not working. They are feeling exhausted. They are feeling burnt out, and they are wondering, is God mad at me? Did he get it wrong? Am I the right person for the job? And so the concern that we are seeing that moms have for their mental health, knowing there's a problem that they are feeling anxious.

They're fearful, with all the things going on in the world, that they're isolating themselves away; they don't have that community. I am grateful that we are seeing the problem, but our moms are also saying to themselves, what are the solutions? What can I do? Because they do not want to operate in this way anymore, they want to take care of themselves, they want to take care of their mental health, but they don't know, they don't know what to do, and they don't know what the solutions are.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yes, and that's what I want us to talk about during this time together because I feel like when you know that there's a problem and you don't know what to do next, that can sometimes be even more stressful and I wanted that particular survey even talked about nearly half of the mothers are currently seeking some type of assistance or therapy with over 32 percent of them reporting anxiety as the area of Concern.

And I know anxiety is a topic that is near and dear to your heart. You've written quite a few other books actually about anxiety. What has been your own personal mental health journey?

Caris Snider: Yes, about 11 years ago, anxiety and depression almost took my life. I was a master of the mask. My husband and I, at that time, were worship leaders at our church.

I had a successful business going on within my home and my daughter, who's in 9th grade now. She was living her best toddler life then, man. Everything on the outside. side looks great and looked perfect, but I was being crushed by the weight of the anxiety on the inside feeling; my heart would race, or I would feel breathless, and I would have those thoughts, those what ifs, you know, the worst case scenarios playing out in my mind that would paralyze me.

In my own life, I was also in a season, if I was being very honest with you, where I didn't think anxiety and depression were real. And if anyone came to me wanting help and advice, my advice would be to pray harder, try harder, do more, and suck it up. And those are not. Those are not healthy things.

Those were not the best things for me to say. And I found myself in the bottom of the bottom wing, maybe a hundred pounds with the weight of the world on my shoulders, thinking that I was hopeless, worthless, and useless, and God couldn't use a mom like me. God couldn't use a woman like me, but at the bottom of that pit, I'll never forget feeling like God just whispered, look up.

And when I looked up, there were helpers. There was a counselor and a doctor, and my church family was there, and I wasn't alone, and I began to realize, Hey, anxiety is very real. Depression is very real. These mental struggles that we face are real, and we're not alone. They are happening to adults and teenagers and our children all across the world.

So we need to bring light to the darkness. I began to realize then, why are we in the faith community not talking about this? Why are we not championing The idea that God has given us practical skills that are connected to his word, connected to truth? And when we can put action and truth together, that gives me chills to think about how powerful that is.

And so that began me on this journey of wanting to learn to study and how to talk about it in a way that we can all begin to practice these healthy, practical action steps that can really be life-giving and life-changing for us. As long as we go through this process it is a process. And I have people ask me all the time, are you free?

Do you ever have anxiety or depression anymore? And I wish I could say yes, but there, I still have days, and I still have moments, but I've learned God has equipped me with what to do when those moments in those anxious thoughts try to come in and steal my life. I'm learning now how to push through instead of trying to push away.

Does that make sense?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: It absolutely does. And I'm so glad you said that because I think that's a misconception that people have: You arrive at some point in time, and you never feel any of this stuff. And that's not reality. I'm a mom; my oldest son is actually at the University of Alabama in his sophomore year; he just went there.

And so you can imagine when you release your first child into the world. You're gonna have some thoughts that hit your head because they are not in your. They're not in your back pocket anymore where you can know everything that's going on. And so I think it's wisdom to realize that you're gonna have these waves where things come at you.

Life happens. And the tools that you mentioned, that is, I think, is the key. Truth in action. Understanding what the truth is you believe that you can ground and solidify your faith on and then what are some of the practical action steps you can do. So for yourself, what are a couple of scriptural references or even specifics from the Bible?

Maybe it's not a specific scripture. Maybe it's just a concept from the Bible that you have grounded yourself within the truth.

Caris Snider: Yes, I think of three specifically very quickly. First of all, on the anxious thoughts, I go quite a bit to Philippians 4:8 to think about what is in

Christine Trimpe helps us crush our carbohydrate cravings, decrease our sugar consumption, and improve our overall well-being in this week's episode of I Choose My Best Life.

Get Christine's FREE Crush Your Cravings Wellness Guide for Christian Women.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Saundra, and you're listening to I choose my best life today. I have Christine Trimpe with me, and we're going to be talking about how we get our health and wellness back on track this year by focusing on improving the way we eat. And a big part of that is getting some of the unnecessary, over-processed sugars out of our lives.

Christine has an amazing story and journey she's been on with God. She has lost over 100 pounds and now helps others do the same to get their health back on track. Christine, thank you so much for joining me. Let me have you begin by just sharing a little bit about your background. And how did you come into this type of work?

Christine Trimpe: Hello, Dr. Saundra; thank you so much for hosting me today. I'm overjoyed to be here. I am what I call an accidental author and an accidental speaker. I had no idea that God had this story in store for me. But he did take me on an amazing journey of a health and heart transformation, starting back about seven years ago on the side of a mountain in Colorado.

I had been living morbidly obese for about three decades at that point. I tried to climb up a trail with my husband in the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park, and I ended up gasping for breath, and I just could not go another step further. And that was really my turning point, my story of where I finally began the process of surrendering all of my cravings, my fleshly cravings, everything that was separating me from God's best for my health and wellness.

So that's where my turning point started.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I love that you're just very honest about that. I started because I was trying to do this walk and basically couldn't because of my weight. I think a lot of people have been in that situation, whether it's trying to chase grandkids or on vacation, and you're trying to do something, and you're like, wow, this seatbelt on this plane's not quite fitting anymore.

There are so many times when we can be in those moments where we just don't feel comfortable in our bodies anymore. However, I think just about everyone's had a time when they've tried to lose weight. And so, how was this time different? I'm sure that wasn't the first time that you thought about your weight or losing weight, but something had to change this time to end up with a hundred-pound weight loss that you have kept off.

Christine Trimpe: It was definitely time for me to start taking back control of my health and all of those years, those 30 years. Of course, I had tried dieting. I tried everything: counting calories, eating less, and moving more. And at one point, I was even in a hospital-based program where I was only drinking liquid shakes.

I do not recommend it; looking back, that was a very bad decision, but yeah, I had tried all the things. When I look back on that moment on the side of the mountain, I just remember gasping for air and feeling so defeated and humiliated that my husband continued up the path, and I told him to go on without me.

I was fine sitting on the side of the path, but I did have tears welling in my eyes when I contemplated my circumstances. And I can remember just saying, God, I want to feel better. At that point, I had already given up hope that I would ever live at a healthy weight because every time I approached a healthy weight, something would happen. I would jump on that yo dieting rollercoaster again, and I would gain the weight back, and then I would also gain what they say about 10 pounds more than what it originally started at.

So I just, at that point, I wanted to feel better. I didn't want to be sucking down air, and that path wasn't that strenuous; it was a hike that most average people can do in that park. Yeah, I just said; I cried out to God silently through weld tears in my eyes and just said, I want to feel better.

I want to feel better. And I didn't have any expectations at that time. But now, when I look back on it, I know that was the key. That was the turning point that completely changed my life.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I think that's such an important point because, very often, we get caught up on the numbers on the scale.

We get caught up on clothes sizes, and those become the focus. And so it's not so much about our well-being or health sometimes. Sometimes, it gets very focused on superficial things. And so I think that heart change to, Oh, it's not, I don't just want to look good for my Child's wedding or whatever it is.

I want to feel better. I want to enjoy my body. I want to be able to do activities and not feel pain and discomfort and all those things afterward. What are some of the first steps you took when you had this shift? How did you begin this process?

Christine Trimpe: The very first thing I did when I got home from Colorado was finally going to call a sleep doctor.

I had been putting off calling a sleep doctor for years because I knew if I went and had a sleep study done, I was going to be coming home with a CPAP machine, and that just sounded dreadful to me. But I really, my heart went out to my husband, bless his heart. He was so kind and compassionate with me on that trip because, apparently, in the elevated mountain setting, my snoring got really bad, too.

So, he did make sure to point that out. And so, since I felt bad for him too, I was partially doing it for him, but I knew I had begun. At that point, I was already studying our hormonal health and the impact of hormones on our entire health, especially in relation to my obesity. And I knew that sleep was so important to our hormonal health.

And I thought that's a good place to start because I'm so exhausted daily. If I could sleep better, maybe I could start. Step by step, taking back control of all the things in my health that I needed to set up that sleep study. Sure enough, I came home with that CPAP machine, and As dreadful as it sounded at the time, I am so grateful for that machine because it definitely changed my health for the better

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yeah, that's a good point.

I think many people do have some ideas of, oh, I could never, as far as a CPAP machine. However, I think a lot of people don't realize just how drained they are. Because of their poor quality sleep, when they feel exhausted and you feel depleted within your body, it has a tendency to make you crave things that will boost up their energy, which has a tendency to be those things that are sugary or caffeinated, those things that aren't always the best options for your health all the time.

And so being able to identify if there's underlying actual medical reasons. While you're feeling some of that fatigue and exhaustion, it is very important to identify first. So absolutely. I think for anyone who's starting a health journey at the beginning of this 2024 year, that's coming to make sure that you get some initial evaluation.

Make sure your thyroid's good. Make sure there are no underlying other issues that are adding to some of the symptoms. And then, after you had that initial kind of checkup with your sleep doctor, what were some of the dietary changes? Where did you start with a nutritionist? Did you start with a specific program?

How did you begin changing what you were putting in your body?

Christine Trimpe: I actually didn't start with anybody because, at that point, I was so frustrated and exasperated by all the things that hadn't worked for so long. Actually, at the same time I got diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, I was having painful ovarian cysts.

This all happened in the fall of 2015. I had an abdominal and pelvic ultrasound ordered. And yes, I had an ovarian cyst, but they also discovered a fatty liver. So, I was diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And my gynecologist, I think she was expecting that because I was more than a hundred pounds overweight.

So she, she didn't really poo it, but in my mind, that wasn't her focus. She was more concerned about the cyst. So I went home and started researching why did my, why is my liver full of fat. And that's when I went down all the rabbit holes of learning more about your hormonal health and how it impacts everything, your entire health and wellness.

One of the things, and I can't pinpoint, Where I was, but I was reading some nutritional information online and I remember reading that sugar is a major hormone disruptor. And I was like, oh, wow. Okay. So then I really had to evaluate. The first thing I looked at was how I was starting my day. And every day, I was starting my day with, again, to help with that caffeine boost.

But I was starting my day with several cups of coffee that were more. Sugar-flavored creamer than coffee. That's how I started my day, and after doing that research, I decided to quit coffee cold turkey because I couldn't imagine drinking coffee without the sugared creamer.

And so that began my quitting sugar journey. And I credit this entire journey to the fact that I did decide that I needed to eliminate sugar from my diet. So that I could begin balancing my health my hormones, and also reverse my fatty liver disease. That was my main focus at the time.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Now, when you say limit sugar, I think with there being so many different die

In this episode, Victoria Riollano leads us in a discussion on how to spiritually protect our children by creating a war plan for our family.

Get Victoria's free War Plan Template when you subscribe to her newsletter.

Get your copy of Warrior Mother: Equipping Your Heart to Fight for Your Family's Faithand get her free resources.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Saundra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today, we're chatting with Victoria Riollano, and she will help us understand how we can be warrior moms who stand in the gap for our families. Victoria is a mom of eight. She's also a military spouse and knows a lot about this process.

So I'm looking forward to our conversation. Victoria, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I want to hear a little bit about your background. What made you write a book about being a warrior mom?

Victoria Riollano: Yeah. So, as you said, I do have eight kids. I didn't start off that way. In fact, when I had two kids, I realized that motherhood was extraordinarily more overwhelming than I expected. As a person who has a background in child development, that's what my degree is in. I just figured motherhood would naturally come. But I will say a couple of years into my journey, I found myself hiding in closets for my kids when they were too noisy, just not knowing what to do, crying all the time, anxious, depressed, fearful, all the things motherhood was basically taking its toll on me and it wasn't until I really started to put my trust in God and allow him to lead my journey and rest in him that I started to see things change and realize that I was more courageous, more resilient than even I thought I was. So yeah, that's what kind of encouraged me to write this book for other moms so that they could know that they could rise up above those daily challenges and really be warrior mothers themselves.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I love the fact that you come at this from someone who has experience with just what it looks like to be a warrior in your own family because you have a spouse who is in the military. What has your experience been as a military spouse as it relates to parenting and home life and just supporting your spouse in that process?

Victoria Riollano: Yeah. So, one thing about being a military spouse is you always get to hear the stories when they come home. One thing that has always been a central theme is this idea of the commanding officer taking the lead and being the people who have to follow the commanding officer is something that my husband will always talk about.

And that really came to life to me when I started to write this book because, for so long I was the commander in chief of my own home, of my own heart, of my own parenting journey. So just being a military spouse helped me realize that there is power in submitting to authority sometimes. For me, Submitting to God has really been that pivotal thing that's changed my parenting.

And so, even throughout the book, I give so many of his stories as examples of how we can allow God to take the lead and take charge of our parenting.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Now you talk about having a war plan inside of your book, Warrior Mother. So what is a war plan? And why do we even need one?

Victoria Riollano: Yeah, so that chapter is my favorite chapter because I am a planner.

I plan when I go to the grocery store, I plan when I go to the mall, and I plan vacations for months and years at a time beforehand. And so, for me, what I realized is when it came to my parenting, I had no plan. I just let each day happen as it may. And most of the time, it didn't end very well. And so the work plan is just an opportunity for mothers to take that pencil and to pray and to take that paper and to say, God, what is it that you have for my family?

And so, the work plan includes a foundational verse. It includes things that are non-negotiables for your family, things that you are just not going to allow to happen, whatever rules that you have in place. And then, it also has specific goals in mind for your children and for your family. So, it is just a way for you to actually visualize what it is that God is speaking to you and follow that.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I love that because I think we, we hear a lot about. Revival, we hear a lot about starting at home, raising your kids in the way they should go, and these types of mindset. But I think sometimes we don't actually go about it in an intentional way so that you can have some steps as far as what you need to do to get to that place.

And I know in your book, you do talk a lot about spiritual transformation. Why do you feel like spiritual transformation is key to this process of really building homes that are strong in their faith?

Victoria Riollano: Yeah. And so one thing I noticed when I was looking up parenting books for myself is that parenting books, Christian parenting books specifically place a lot of focus on behavior.

How do we fix the kids, right? Instead of, hey, how do we work with mom? How do we work with Dad to be able to create environments that are conducive to learning more about the Lord? And so I've learned in my own life that the closer I am to God, the more I'm able to show his love, the more I'm able to speak and act in a way that would draw my kids closer to God because I can preach and teach And throw Bible scriptures and throw Bible stories at them all day long.

But if I'm not changed on the inside, I'm not giving them anything to model. It's just stories on paper. And so, really, God has shown me the importance of really taking my spiritual health very seriously because I can't take it anywhere that I'm not even willing to go in my own life.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Oh, that is so true.

And I think that, once we start looking at it that way, that it has to start with me, a personal revival, a personal relationship, that spiritual transformation within my own heart to then have the kind of wellspring inside of me to even be able to pour into our children and our families. So, in your chapter on modeling the faith, what are some keys or strategies, or maybe even just the first steps that a mother can take?

Who is listening to us and thinks - This is something I need to do. This is a place where I need to really take some inventory related to my family. Where does she begin?

Victoria Riollano: Yeah, I think the first place she begins is how she talks about herself and how she talks about other people. That right there is going to set the foundation of how you talk to your own children as well.

So our mouth, really monitoring what comes out of our mouth because that's the first thing that kids are going to pick up on is how does my mom speak to me? How does my mom speak to other people? How does she talk about other people? I think that is the first thing. And I think that leads to the second thing: How do you interact with your word?

How do you interact with your word? Do you speak about the Bible? Is the Bible and God's story of love and hope just throughout your home in every situation? For example, in my home, if my child falls and bumps their knee, I'm immediately like, let's pray for you. We're going to get the band-aids, too, but I'm also going to go ahead and pause and pray for them.

So, I'm modeling for them, but I believe in prayer. Even though I didn't necessarily say it, I've modeled it for them. And then one other thing that I also talked about in that chapter is how do we talk about the church. Because that's something that's very important because, as parents, if we want our children to have deeper relationships with God, we really have to monitor How are we talking about the church and what it looks like to be in fellowship and community with other believers, because when we're not there for our kids, it's possible that the church may actually come and step in and fill in those holes.

So we want to be very mindful of if we're drawing them closer to God and his people or if we're drawing them away by the things we talk about in that area, too.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yes. Now I know we said you're a mom of eight kids. Those kids range in age from you just recently having a newborn to what is the age of your oldest child?

Victoria Riollano: Yeah, so my kids range from three months to 16 right now. So, every two to three years, babies.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: So, is this book written with a specific mother? In mind regarding her stage with her children, or can moms at any stage in their parenting and their motherhood gain benefit from the lessons that you share, I would venture to say moms really at any stage because there were some battles that I dealt with when my children were under five.

Victoria Riollano: But there's some battles that I'm dealing with now that my children are teenagers. It's just totally different worlds. And I'm sure if I were to talk to my mother, who now has a 30-plus child, that there are some battles that she's dealing with, too. So, I feel like at every stage of motherhood, we can use these truths of not believing the lies of the enemy.

We can use the truth of modeling what it looks like to be a Christian mom. And we can also use the truth of knowing that we're not alone. And our struggles and that we need to find other women to come alongside us and to be battle buddies for us when things get very tough and very difficult.

Dr. Stephanie Foster joins me on this episode to share how we can choose reflection and embrace being the beloved of God.

Get your copy of I Am A Beloved Daughter Of God: 90 Day Reflection Journaland get her free resources.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Saundra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today we're chatting with Dr. Stephanie Foster. She's a leadership strategist who's going to help us understand how we can choose reflection as a part of our own personal leadership. So Dr. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us.

I'd love to learn a little bit more about who you are and the type of work that you do.

Dr. Stephanie Foster: Wonderful. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here, Dr. Saundra. I'll start simply. I am a doer, an encourager, and a builder. More specifically, if people want to know about my background, I have a military background. I am now an entrepreneur.

As a leadership strategist, what I do is that I help leaders solve hard And innovative problems and do everything from the lens of leadership, whether that's personal or collective leadership.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: That's who I am. Now, when I hear the word leadership strategist, I think some of us might be like, I'm not exactly sure what that means.

Does that mean you work with corporations, or do you work with individuals, or do you do both? What exactly does a leadership strategist do?

Dr. Stephanie Foster: In my way of doing it and being a leadership strategist. I do both. So with individuals, I relish being able to work with our emerging leaders who are already in positions of leadership and they aspire to go to higher levels of leadership their specific questions may include what do I need to do to gain the visibility that I need to have the others understand what I bring in terms of value to the organization.

So we come up with strategies for that. Or some may say, I need a particular kind of experience with education, training, or whatever else. So I may help individual leaders move from one level of performance to the next with corporations and companies. I relish having those problems that come that have not been solved before or that are different.

And you're as a leader, you have that expectation of being able to take your team. Through whatever it is, the chaos, whatever the situation may call for, and coming to some desired end state. So I work the entire spectrum, but the bottom line is just being able to team with a leader or group of leaders.

Understanding what strengths they have, understanding the problem they're facing, and then coming up with strategies for them to use what they have to get to

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: where they desire. I love how you take your business and leadership knowledge and you bring it in with the word of God to actually help men and women better understand.

Their own personal leadership journeys through the word of God. I know you have quite a few versions of Bible plans that are out there, and you've recently released a new book titled I Am a Beloved Daughter of God. It's a 90-day reflective journal. And I want to know a little bit about that. Where did you decide that the topic of being a daughter of God needed further evaluation?

Dr. Stephanie Foster: Dr. Saundra, can I ask you a question? Absolutely. Today, how many positive messages, if you don't mind answering the question, have you received about yourself as an individual? Wow.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Today, none as of right now that I can think of.

Dr. Stephanie Foster: And when I think about your sphere, you deal with a lot of people in different places.

And if I think of someone else who's watching TV or whatever else, and she is doing her best to be that believer, but there are so many times where we have just a barrage of messages coming towards us that would have us think that we are not. And wonderful as we are made and our uniqueness is not a strength, but there's always something that needs to be fixed.

You're not quite there, something that is not right. Where do we get that messaging that there is someone who looks at you on your best days, your worst days and all the in-betweens? And every day, he is looking at you from the eyes of love and acceptance. Understanding and being for you.

And what does that do for you to think that no matter what the day presents, you can face it from a position of knowing that you are loved. That is so good. And I wrote it for anyone else who is dealing with those times when you just want to know that you're not alone, that someone is for you, and that someone is someone who can do so much about your situation and get you through.

So it was for me and for all women of all ages who want to have that journey of looking at their lives and seeing how no matter where they are and what's going on, their life matters as it is each day, and that they are loved. And that gives them access to the source who can help them get from where they are to where they're going for that next day, next month, next year, whatever the case may be.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Does that make sense? It does, and that's such a great point because I never really think about it like that, but you're right today, I didn't really do much and go very many places so, so I haven't been around a lot of people, but even then it's very it's only certain situations where I get affirming or get congratulations or kudos or those kinds of things certain places certain people, and I realize just as you're stating there are a lot of people, a lot of women who are doing a lot of great things in the world for their family, for their communities, wherever sphere God has them in, who may not hear those words of appreciation.

And so being reminded. That we have a father, we have a lover of our soul. We have we are able to get to a place of accepting the belovedness of that relationship, that there is a lot of value in that. When you were writing this book, what did you personally learn from your times of reflection?

Dr. Stephanie Foster: I need to think about what I'm thinking about. Dr. Saundra, too often, we, especially me, can just let thoughts run through our minds, and we don't check them. Some of these thoughts, Dr. Saundra, are bad thoughts that we should not allow within the porch of our house if I were to use that illustration of a house.

And in the South here, you welcome people to the porch, blah, blah, blah. And if someone comes inside the house to come into the front room, there are different degrees of access. So you let people into your space, but there are some thoughts that we should not even allow on the street in front of the house of our mind.

But if we don't think about what we're thinking about, we can nurture those thoughts. That becomes actions and behaviors that don't do us good. That could be harmful. That could be toxic. So what I learned for myself is that as I'm thinking about reflecting and thinking about what is going on in my life and assessing that I'm becoming more aware of those thoughts that are rogue and that are not helping me.

And saying stop and do something about it. So that's what I learned this practice of being more aware of what I'm thinking about and then doing something about those thoughts.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I'm still stuck on the first thing you just said. It has my brain all wrapped around the first topic.

But yeah, you're so right. I think the way we talk to ourselves and the thoughts we allow to run around our mind, we don't police them; we let them do whatever they want to do. Or, we let our self-talk go in whatever direction it wants to go. And I think, yeah, your very first question to me it made me start thinking also about do I compliment myself.

What is my self-talk to myself, about me? I would love to go down that path a little bit. Because I'm sure there are women who are listening, who, as I stated, who maybe no one else has said this week a compliment or something that congratulates them for something they've done.

I would love for both of us to think about what is the best compliment we can say about ourselves.

Dr. Stephanie Foster: That is so rich. As I think about this topic.

I think about us showing up. To me, that is so profound because Many times we may wonder if we have what it takes for whatever the situation may be, but again, understanding the beloved and our relationship with our father, he takes what we give and he can put all of his what extra on that so that what we give and share permits him to have something to do the amazing with.

I immediately think of the young boy who brought his lunch to the meeting that was there in the wilderness. for joining us. Now, in my mind's eye, Mom was there, showing up doing what she did. Mom may not have felt particularly happy about it. All right, let me go ahead and get these fish in these loaves. Hey, you're going to take what we got.

Go on, baby boy, go to the meeting, blah, blah, blah. But that mom's faithfulness had this little boy with the only food that they had there in that particular situation that Jesus took. Lifted it up, blessed it, and that became that miraculous meal for the 5,000 men. This is one of the several occasions when the 5,000 men plus the family members who were there ate to their fill and then had 12 baskets of food left over.

But I go back to someone who was there in that home that provided that young child with that lunch. Probab

In this episode, Melissa Johnson helps us overcome body shame and choose body love.

Check out Melissa's Impossible Beauty podcast.

Get your copy of Soul-Deep Beauty: Fighting for Our True Worth in a World Demanding Flawless.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Saundra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today, we're going to be talking about our bodies, our temple, and how do we stay in love with our bodies and not get into a place of comparison and shame when we look at all the social media pics and all the different magazine articles.

So I have joining me today, Melissa Johnson. She is an eating disorder survivor, Christian spiritual director, and author of the book Soul Deep. Beauty, and I'm looking forward to this conversation so that we can get back on track with some healthy self-talk and a healthy understanding of what wellbeing really means.

Melissa, thank you so much for joining me today.

Melissa Johnson: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Let me have you start by just sharing a little bit about your journey. I know that you recovered from an eating disorder. What was the scenario around that, that led to even beginning in that journey?

Melissa Johnson: Yeah, that's a great question. About eight or nine years ago, I was working as a licensed marriage and family therapist, and it came to my attention via my own therapist that I was seeing. She flagged some of the behaviors that I was having around food and movement and noted that she called it an eating disorder.

And to be quite honest, I was really taken aback. I think part of it probably was denial. But also, I do think we have a lot of these messages in our culture that aren't so helpful when it comes to food and bodies and what we see as beauty and uphold as beauty. And I ended up having to pause my work as a marriage and family therapist to do some intensive work around an eating disorder.

The book goes into detail about how that came about and a bit more about my journey, but By the time I got into treatment, I think I had been balancing somewhere on the spectrum between disordered eating and eating disorder for about a decade. And I think that's what I'm trying to point out in this book is that I think there are likely a lot more disordered relationships with food bodies in our end movement.

Because of the disordered nature of our cultural narratives around these things, and yeah, I was in intensive eating disorder treatment for about nine to 12 months. And through that journey, I started to see the depths to which these ideas around beauty and body image. Were not only impacting the women and men in intensive eating disorder treatment but also I started to see these same beliefs and behaviors and struggles in my peers, in a lot of our messaging around that I would see on commercials, this idea we should shrink our bodies and restrict our food.

And so the things that we'll be calling were called Disordered in treatment, we're actually being upheld in popular culture. And on the other side of this, of my treatment journey, I became very passionate about redefining beauty and what is it that we're shooting for. My working definition in the book and currently is redefining beauty as the life of God at work in us and among us.

I love

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: that. And it's so true. Our culture really does. Set us at war with our bodies and the way that it oftentimes present things. There are lots of body shame issues. And as you mentioned, eating disorders can take on various forms of what that looks like. I think too often, when we say eating disorders, we're automatically thinking of bulimia or anorexia.

Can you go in a little bit more depth? I love something that you shared, which is that there are spectrums. And different ways that we have disorganized relations or dysfunctional relationships with food and well-being practices. Can you go a little bit deeper into that? Because I think that's the disconnect that, as you mentioned, even you had.

It's I don't know if I would call this an eating disorder. What does that really mean?

Melissa Johnson: Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out because I actually found that I was not alone. A number of people I've spoken with just in general but also on my podcast, impossible beauty. That's their story, too. They were, they didn't realize that it was an eating disorder because a lot of what they were doing was upheld by the popular culture.

So yeah, so a disordered relationship. with with food or, I'll even say, quote health. I think that, yeah, so I will say too, like the spectrum, I think maybe if we imagine a spectrum, one side is disordered eating, one side is an eating disorder. I think that diagnoses can be helpful, but I think the reason I don't.

I love even saying that I had an eating disorder diagnosis because I'm afraid that people listening might just tune it out and be like I don't have an eating disorder, so I don't need to listen to this conversation. But I do think that so much of our our cultural messages around these things are disordered.

And like even me, probably when I would meet diagnostic criteria for entry for an eating disorder, I, I probably, I don't know, maybe two years before I would have been closer on the disordered eating side of the spectrum. So I think more so the way I like to look at it is this: is my relationship with food or body image depleting me of life, of the fullness of life that God invites us into?

And so I think when I think about disordered relationships with food, there was a survey that was done out of, I think it was Chapel Hill. It was in that particular survey that 75 percent of the women surveyed reported disordered relationships with food. And okay, so what is disordered eating or disordered relationship with food?

And some of the things that were labeled as disordered eating would have been like restricting whole food groups and restricting amounts of food. I'm trying to think of some other examples also deeming some foods as good and some foods as bad, having this binary of foods and having the fear around certain foods.

So those are some examples. Yeah. Are there any other pieces of that that I could pick up on?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I Want to go into some very specifics with it, as it relates to teens because one of the studies that you mentioned is from the CDC from February 2023, which says three in five us teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in the past year since COVID.

And that was double the rate of boys as a therapist. What role do you feel body image shame and self-esteem play? In those feelings of hopelessness that teen girls are experiencing?

Melissa Johnson: Yeah, such a good question. And I don't know that we can. Research is interesting because we can say there's a likely correlation.

I can't say causation at this point. However, I could say anecdotally and just logically, when we think about the inundation of social media currently, I have a couple of stats here. So we know that 80 percent of girls have used an app to change their appearance before the age of 13. We also know that girls ages 10 to 17 were found to spend five hours on social media every day.

And I think when we consider the fact that there is this inundation of our developing neural networks of adolescent girls, I'll even say, I don't know. I think I recently heard that girls as young as eight are maybe getting social media. And so if we're thinking about the developing minds of these young girls who are literally, I heard someone use the phrase being disciplined by social media.

And I think that's so true. If it is, five hours on social media every day, this inundation of literally fake. Images and this impossible standard because it is literally fake. And we know, through social comparison theory from psychology, that it is just our innate human instinct to compare ourselves with these images that are being presented before us.

And I don't think it's a big jump to say that if we're comparing. Comparing ourselves to flawless images of what our culture upholds is beauty or beautiful. Likely, shame is being elicited, and I want to go ahead and just give us Brene Brown's definition of shame. I think it's a great definition.

So she defined shame as an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging the last part, the unworthy of love and belonging. Like Transcribed In these primary important developmental times where these girls are developing who they are, their identity, and this shame is likely being elicited five hours of their day.

I don't think we could make it, I don't think that's a big jump. That is going to the core of who they are and their sense of worth and belonging. And so I. I do think we're on the cusp of the social media inundated youth being raised on social media.

I don't think we've seen the effects of this to its extent, and I don't think it's a far stretch to say that it is deeply impacting them in some pretty significant ways.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Absolutely. As an adult who has worked through their own identity things and their relationship with God, it can be very easy for the comparisons and all of those things to slip in when you're looking at them oftentimes on social media and within the general media.

Images that appear to be perfect, you don't know what has been airbrushed. You don't know what ha

Sandra Joseph helps us reevaluate our questions to God and choose to seek the questions He is asking us.

Get Sandra's Journaling Guide to help you ask God better questions.

Get your copy of What He Asks: My Journey of Finding God Faithful Through Chronic Illness.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome everyone. This is Dr. Sandra and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today I'm chatting with Sandra Joseph and we're going to talk about what does it look like to stay in a place of faith when dealing with a chronic illness. And Sandra is joining us today to discuss her journey with the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes and how God has met her in this process.

So Sandra. Thank you so much for joining me.

Sandra Joseph: I'm so thrilled to be here and there's nothing safer than being with a doctor, right? So I feel well cared for.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I want to hear more about your story. I know that this has been a journey that you have been on for years and that you have learned a lot about God in the process.

Let's start a little bit about just what was it like when you first got to this place where you realized. That type two type one rather diabetes was going to be a ongoing part of your life.

Sandra Joseph: It was in a very tender time in my life. I was married one week at 21. I married my college sweetheart.

And we had been married a week came home on our honeymoon, I dropped 14 pounds on our honeymoon, was extremely tired on our honeymoon. And my mom took one look at me and said Something's wrong. And back then, this is 1981, and back then they had something called doctor books, where they were encyclopedias Of diet what do I want to say?

Symptoms. And those symptoms, she went through those books until she found out what I had. And it's not like we had Google back then. And she called my husband and I, one week married, and said, you need to get her to the emergency room right away. I went into the hospital with a blood sugar of 840. And extremely sick young woman, new marriage, new town, new apartment, new job, everything brand new and a total life change in so many ways at that point.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Now, where was your faith at the time all of this happened? Were you already someone who believed in God and had a relationship with Jesus or were you still investigating that part of your life at that time?

Sandra Joseph: No, I was a good little church girl. I'd grown up going to church. I loved Sunday school. I love church.

I went to a Christian college. I married the student Senate president. We were the ideal couple, and so I was very surprised that God was not yeah. Blessing all of our goodness, like I had been a good girl. Where was God living up to my end of the bargain and getting diagnosed one week after you were married was not part of what I thought a good God would do.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:I love where this conversation is going because now we're getting really in the real part of the journey, the part where our questions arise and we start doubting things. And sometimes we even start doubting God. And you actually have a book that is titled What He Asked, My Journey of Finding God Faithful.

Through chronic illness, how did you deal with the questions, those very same questions that you just mentioned?

Sandra Joseph: I had a lot of questions for God and I was not very happy with God, and I was not very happy with my life, and I was not nothing was right, and because I had really had a lot of expectations for marriage, a lot of expectations for what our life would look like, and so when God didn't meet all those expectations, I was extremely disappointed, and it really disappointed me.

But I found over time, and this I'm talking years, I'm not talking a few weeks or a few months, and I just gave in. I am talking years of trying to figure out who God is, why he would allow this to happen, and what he wanted from me, and instead of maybe asking him questions, allowing him to ask me questions.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I think that's an interesting concept to take all of our questions, all of our doubts, all of our fears, all of those things that pop up when something like this happens in our life. Something that we can't explain is something that for us doesn't seem to make sense to then open ourselves up to what he's asking of us.

What are some of the questions that God asked of you?

Sandra Joseph: Some of the questions that God asked of me was the first one he asked Adam and Eve. Where are you? He wanted to know where I was. He wanted to know where I was physically, where I was emotionally, where I was spiritually. And until I could start working through those questions, where am I?

Where am I? That, could I even begin to understand who he was? Because I had to understand where I was. And I was angry. I was bitter. I was frustrated. I thought I deserved better. I thought I should be God and he should come alongside to give me what I wanted. I

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: think we've all felt that at some point in our journey that God, this is how it works when we serve you.

We have a life that does not have any difficulty that doesn't have any struggle but we know that's not biblical. That's not what the word of God says. It actually says the opposite that in this world, we will have those moments, right? Exactly. We will have those moments, but he's still faithful.

How did you get back on track from? the questions, the fears to a place where we're now 40 plus years into having type one diabetes. Not only are you helping people with chronic illness embrace the truth of their faith and the goodness of God, but you also are an advocate for diabetes awareness. How did you make that transition?

Sandra Joseph: I told, I remember telling my husband, I'm either going to leave this faith. Because I don't really like who this God has shown himself to be or I'm going to dig in and I'm going to get to know him. And obviously that was God gently drawing me in and sometimes hitting me over the head, drawing me in to say, get to know me, not who you want me to be, but get to know me.

And as he would beckon me each day, come sit with me and start reading my word. And I would read it. And maybe in a child's Bible to begin with, or I remember having a woman's devotional Bible, and I just loved the stories from the women would write in that devotional. Or, then I'd move to a study Bible.

I would begin to doing Bible studies, but I got to know him as opposed to what I. Wanted him to be. And as I got to know him, and reading a lot of books, John A. Erickson taught a great role model The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom, just really grew my faith. And so those are the things that started to shape who I knew God to be and what he was asking of me.

And realizing that it was his purposes at work, not my dream life that I had wanted.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Now, under all of this is the relationship that we have with others when we're in a state of some type of chronic disease. What impact did this have on any of your relationships, either your marriage or even other relationships that you have?

Sandra Joseph: For years, I would go around asking people to. To show me that they cared and they just couldn't, they just couldn't, they just couldn't enter into that pain with me and I could read, sitting, cornering a pastor and asking him why this might happen or spending time with mentors and just lamenting that God had allowed this in our lives, just there was so much pain I used to say that I used to just like Dump on people and they just look at me and go, Oh, I don't you'll be okay.

You'll be okay. And back away because they didn't know what else to do again. It was finding that from like first Peter says cast your cares on. Him because he cares for you. When I realized he understood best what I was going through, where I was at, he knew what was going through my mind.

And even better than that, he knew how my body was handling, uh, the insulin that day or the exercise I was doing that day or the food that I was eating. He knew it so much more than my husband or anyone. Yes, I do

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: think people sometimes struggle with really understanding what it's like to live with a chronic disease.

If you've never, if you've never taken care of someone with a chronic illness or you've never personally had one, it can be hard to know how to help and how to support them because you don't really know how to enter into even the conversation sometimes. What are some of the struggles and fears that you work through when you are living with a chronic illness?

Sandra Joseph: All I need is for a commercial to come on about diabetes and anymore because there are so many diabetes drugs they come on about every four or five minutes and they always list heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, and all of a sudden I can be sitting there and I can suddenly allow that into my mind and it can change me from an enjoyable evening to one where suddenly I'm filled with fear.

A doctor's appointment can do that for me. All it takes for me is to wake up and something doesn't feel quite right. What's going on? Where, yeah, what do I, how do I need to manage it? So the fear is a constant companion. One of the things you don't understand about a chronic illness is the dailiness of it. You don't take a break. You don't take a

Diana Asaad joins me on the show to share how couples who have been drifting apart, losing connection, and living parallel lives can choose to get their marriage back on track.

Get Diana's free Marriage Toolkit and Intentional Date Night Guidelines.

Get your copy of Journey to You: Fierce Freedom, Authentic Passion, Gracious God.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Sandra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today, we are chatting with a friend of mine about a topic that I think is so important. And that is marriage. Has your marriage gotten to a point where you feel like you are just existing with each other? No connection?

No loving feelings anymore? Just In a house together. If that's the situation, marriage is a good thing. And God wants us to be in covenant with our spouses. And I have with me today Diana Assad, and she is a master-certified intensive coach. Christian counselor and marriage therapist is going to help us to be able to get back on track with this most covenant relationship.

So Diana, welcome for being here. I'm so happy to have you. I want you to start by just sharing a little bit about your own personal background and history in this topic.

Diana Asaad: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate that. This process was birthed out of brokenness.

Our own marriage was falling apart. We had hit rock bottom. We'd been married for over a decade at that point, but we were really just existing. We didn't know what we didn't know. And as things sometimes do, it felt like everything around us was imploding. So marriage and personal and kids and all the things, financial, it was like being bankrupt in all the areas.

And it was our search for healing. We knew that there had to be a better way. We knew that this wasn't the life that God had called us to, but we didn't really know what that could look like. We couldn't find what we have established now. And it was out of that process of really searching and piecing together things and following God closely that we developed a solution oriented approach, really, to healing as well as Skill building in the emotional intelligence arena, two things that I think have been fundamental to our own process. And what we do today with clients. So we really are very grateful for that.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Oh, I love it. You took your pain and became solution areas for others. I want to jump into that because I feel this is a topic we all want to have healthy marriages. And sometimes I fear we don't know when things are falling apart.

We just see it when it's all in a mess. And one of the things you mentioned is that over 85 percent of the people that you work with tend to come to you when they are in crisis mode. What does that look like? How does someone know if they're, I don't even want to wait till people get in crisis mode. How do you know when you're headed in that direction?

Oh, good.

Diana Asaad: Such a great question. So yeah, about 85 percent of the couples that do see us are coming as a last resort. Some of them have already filed for divorce. Some of them are separated. But a lot of them, the majority of them, do feel like they're in crisis mode. And we look at that as living parallel lives.

So we do this a lot with the parallel living. Two hands that have a gap between them going in different directions. And that represents that we've drifted so far. Life has just gotten in the way. We came in with a set of expectations, probably misguided, dysfunctional ideals and ideas of what marriage should look like.

And we've just existed. And we've let life get in the way. And we drift. And we get to a place a lot of times, at least when they come to us, a lot of them have come to a place where there's no connection, there's no communication, they feel frustrated, they've been having the same argument over and over, and there's no exit ramp.

And so this cycle that doesn't, seems never ending has a way out. And that is a very distinct process that we walk people with. And really what we found, Dr. Sandra, is this, is that nobody teaches us how to be married. And we need somebody to hold our hand and looking and examine our foundations in relationship and say, Hey, this has some elements of dysfunction.

This doesn't work in a healthy relationship. We got to uproot some things. We got to teach them what it looks like to resolve their issues. So we actually asked them through the process to come up with their top five to seven recurring issues that if they wish, if we had a magic wand and we could we could wave that thing and these would be resolved.

They would be absolute game changers for their relationship. So we work, we roll up our sleeves with them, we dig into that, we teach them what resolution looks like for each of those areas. And we have 94 percent success at resolving their top recurring issues to their satisfaction. When they leave us, they get to review and to tell us what their process looks like.

And these issues that have been coming up for years in a lot of these cases, they now know a path forward that looks different. And what I love is that it's not a one and done, as healing never is, as life never is, right? We help them to develop healthy habits moving forward. So we work with them on an action plan for the next six months.

They leave with with an action plan, step by step of what change and healthy relationship needs to look like and how do we develop these habits. So it's a fun process. It's also pretty intense. I won't lie. It's diving into the deep end, but you're not alone, really guided through and I always tell my clients, I'm just as exhausted as you are after we're all done.

Okay. We're in it together. So that's really it's our

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: joy. I think that's so true that what you mentioned as far as most of us have this, these moments in our life when things get hard and if we're not careful, it can be very easy to drift apart because sometimes we handle things as individuals, even within our marriage, and we have to keep the communication open, even when we're dealing with individual things within our own lives.

And I want to go a little bit deeper into some of what you described there, because It sounds intensive. We're bringing up our top five issues that we, that are keeping us at this kind of arguing and this torn apart relationship. We're bringing those up. I can imagine there's a lot of forgiving that has to happen there.

There's a lot of grace that has to occur that space has to feel really safe and hopeful. How do you create that type of space between two people who are in friction with each other?

Diana Asaad: So good. We really focus on creating safe space and not just creating it within our context of our retreat, but teaching the clients how to do that moving forward.

I really find that's a skill that not a lot of people understand or know how to do, but once they are introduced to it as a practical skill, they take to it. So creating safe spaces for us is a space for us not to feel judged, shamed, blamed, fixed. Or take things personally from the other side, right?

The moment if I'm sharing with my husband something and we're intending to make these safe spaces, the minute he takes it personally, he can't be present with me. And a lot of our males, we tend to find, are fixers. So the minute that a woman might open her mouth to begin to try and create that connection through emotional, just processing, the husband gets his fixer hat on.

We call it his fixer hat. And he's already thinking, Okay this is a problem. I need to fix it. But creating safe spaces isn't about fixing another person. It's really about being present with them. I may not process like you. I may not understand how you understand. But I seek to understand you. You matter to me.

So we actually lead them through what that looks like, because it is about forgiveness. It is about grace, but it's also about changed behavior. When I have hope that this is going to resolve that I am under, I'm being sought to understand the other person. That's a really big deal. I often say this, that the number one problem I see in relationships is not the things that you would typically think finance.

Those are valid. And those might be more on the surface, but if we're going to get into the root of it, it's that one or both of the couple parties doesn't feel like they matter anymore. So creating safe spaces is the remedy to that. We create that space to let them know, hey, I want you to know, I may not think like you, understand like you, process like you, but you matter to me.

And this is how we're gonna do it. I'm not gonna judge you, I'm not gonna shame you, I'm not gonna blame you, I'm not gonna try and fix you, and I'm not gonna take this personally. I'm just allowing you the space that you need. To process whatever it is that you've been carrying. And that in itself is a skill that's so healing.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yes, it is. And I oftentimes call that restful is I term an emotional rest, that ability of being able just to share what's inside of you without the fear of shame and judgment, I love this concept of seeking to understand the other person, really being the gap that division between those parallel. Lives is that once we start seeking to truly to understand the other person, that gap closes. And you have a book that's out. I think that helps with that because sometimes the issue isn't just that we aren't verbalizing it. Sometimes we don't understand ourselves. It's hard to

Chuck and Ashley Elliott join me on this episode to guide us in how we can navigate both the big and the small changes in life.

Connect with Chuck and Ashley on Facebook and Instagram.

Get your copy of Used to Be ___: How to Navigate Large and Small Losses in Life and Find Your Path Forward.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Sandra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today, we're going to talk about how you navigate the large and the small losses in life and get back on track to moving forward. I have with me today Chuck and Ashley Elliott, and they are going to help us to navigate this process of when we used to be something, and now we're looking for what happens next.

So, Chuck and Ashley, thank you so much for joining me. I want to start by just diving a little bit into why you think you needed to write a book on this topic. On what we used to be.

Ashley Elliott: Our identity is often affected whenever we face loss. So, one of the things that I noticed whenever we went through recurrent miscarriages, it didn't just affect me in our marriage or intimacy.

It affected me at work. It affected my ability to think and to listen to people. I was a university professor at the time, and I just have a harder time bearing the burdens of my students, and I would just have a little bit of a lower frustration tolerance. And so I found that I just felt like I was off my game.

And then I felt this way with my kids. I'm like, I have two boys who are amazing. And I'm finding myself just feeling overwhelmed with things that I normally didn't. And so I noticed an identity shift in me and I felt. Inadequate in my body to be able to protect myself, really protect my baby. And so there's just so many things that I noticed in myself.

I also noticed in counseling clients and students and people in our ministry realm that they felt similarly the different types of losses that they faced.

Chuck Elliott: Yeah, because we find so much value in our identity and our titles. If I say that I'm I'm a banker, I'm a pastor, I'm a teacher, whatever that is.

That's how you introduce yourself, right? You say, yeah, I'll tell you about yourself. I'll start off and tell you about what are my roles. What are the titles? How do I fill in the blank? And then whenever you lose that, you can wonder, how do I fill in the blank now? Who am I? Because you took away the thing that I used as an identifier.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I love that. And I love this I think because it goes so much further than typical losses that we think about. You mentioned miscarriage, death, and grief; there are so many different variations of loss that we experience. And sometimes the loss of seasons and roles and titles and identifiers as you mentioned, are not deemed to be as relevant.

Because they're not a death or something that is, that's more hard-hitting than we often think. I'd like for you to dive a little bit deeper into that because I think for many of us, when we think about grief, we only think about grieving people. Why is it also important to grieve the other losses in our lives?

Chuck Elliott: Yeah, absolutely. You can lose a relationship, and it impacts your life. Something we talk about in the book is we had some neighbors who lived right across the street from us, and they moved. Now, that may sound dramatic because I'm making it a big deal, but they didn't even meet and move across the country.

They moved across town, but you know what? That impacts me because when they come home, I don't get to see them now. Our kids played together. I could wave when they check their mail. I could stalk them and know when Amazon or Walmart or somebody delivered something at their house, and I could ask questions and ask what was for dinner.

Just all those little things that I can selfishly think impact my life. Now, that changes my routine. Am I going to grieve that the same way that I would the death of a family member? No, it's something different. We grieve differently. But if I discount that change in my life, If I discount how things have shifted and I've lost some of that part of my routine, then if I just skip over it, I might be closed off to another relationship.

What if I don't grieve it and don't say, you know what? I really miss having those people across the street, and then somebody else moves in that could be really good friends, and I don't even give them a chance. Because I'm hurt and I'm carrying what it is that I used to have and that's one of the less typical things that we give an example of in the book.

So if we can stay current with our emotions and be self-aware that we need to process something, then we can be stronger in other relationships.

Ashley Elliott: as well. And one of the things you said was that it's different to have the small loss versus big loss, but we did try to pave a path for larger or small losses.

So you can say I'm grieving blank. You're like, wait, grieving. I'm grieving the fact that my neighbors moved. Yes, it is something to be grieved. It's a bummer. It's not maybe at the same level as whenever we lost a child. But it does affect us and makes us feel unsteady in our friendships. And we wonder if the relationship is going to last.

And so when we say I'm grieving blank and we look at how we're coping Oh, am I coping in a positive way? Or am I coping in a negative way? Am I putting up my walls and refusing to connect with other people and allow the new neighbors to be our friends? Okay, then, that's a negative coping mechanism.

And so when we learn, however we grieve, if it's a big loss or a little loss, We're going to use positive and negative coping mechanisms. We're going to do certain behaviors, and we want to learn about those patterns because if we bring God into those places, he will help give us insight. He will help us meet our needs in healthier ways.

And when we talk to each other, and we process, we can heal and find hope that maybe would be missed if we didn't take the time to

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: reflect. Yes, absolutely. And I think it's important to be aware of those emotions, not necessarily judging them, because I think sometimes that prevents us from actually experiencing them.

But as you mentioned, being aware of them and identifying when they're healthy and when they're not healthy. And one of the more unhealthy emotions that we sometimes will begin to exhibit when there's loss is anger. And you mentioned that anger can create an anger wall.

Ashley Elliott: Describe that for us. Okay, behind all of our emotions are sometimes more emotions, but we especially see this happen with anger.

So if you imagine a wall that's built with anger and you remove a brick from that wall, what would be beneath that anger brick? Maybe there is Vulnerability or jealousy or inadequacy or fear, anxiety, sadness, or any type of emotion could be there. Oftentimes, anger makes us feel powerful. We don't want to feel weak.

We don't want to feel vulnerable or lonely or sad. It's easier to feel angry because we feel justified. And so when we understand It might be easier to lean into anger and to feel some momentary strength there than it is to look at those underneath emotions. But when we do look at what's beneath our anger wall, we can find hope and resilience and

Chuck Elliott: strength.

I can tell you that when we faced recurrent miscarriages, I was angry. And if I would take out one of those bricks and that anger wall for me, I felt weak. I felt inadequate. I felt like a failure because I couldn't protect my family. I couldn't protect this little one that we lost that I never got to meet.

And it was a lot easier just to be angry. To be mad about the process, to be mad about the way this happens, mad that nobody talks about it, mad about the way that I'm feeling. But if I really got underneath it, I didn't want to feel like a failure. I didn't want to feel weak. I didn't want to think that I was weak in a failure.

So, if I just seemed strong by putting anger out there, I could mask that. But what happens is if you continue to do that, there are other negative consequences of your anger, and there are other negative consequences of not recognizing and communicating to Ashley that I felt like a failure. I felt weak. I felt inadequate.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Now you two come from two different backgrounds as a way of approaching grief, Ashley being a licensed counselor and Chuck being a pastor. I love the combination of the two because I feel like it gives a very thorough look.How do we overcome and how do we heal? And you both have mentioned your miscarriage.

So, I want to dive a little bit into that. How did you? Get back to a place of trusting God in the middle of that pain. Cause I feel like that is the hard thing for most of us. You love God, you're saved. You believe in Jesus, all the things, hard stuff happens. How do you hold to the trust and the things that you believe?

Ashley Elliott: Such a good point that you have. We are still believers, but we are just shaken sometimes in those moments of loss. And we definitely experienced that now for me. During our first loss, we worshipped in the ER, and I remember just saying, Lord, I want to worship you. This is really hard. This is sad.

And then we had another loss the next year, and I just felt so devastated. I took a year to try to heal and try to process and do research and then. I felt shattered, and I remember st

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