Latest / Is Your Way In Your Way? / Overcoming Your Past

Transcript

Overcoming Your Past · Is Your Way In Your Way?

• 0:25
  Cassandra: To all of my listeners, and my name is Cassandra Crawley Mayo, and I'm the host to Is Your Way in Your Way podcast.
• 0:34
  Cassandra: And actually, that is the name of my book for some of my new listeners that were not aware of that.
• 0:41
  Cassandra: And this podcast is for individuals who I would say stuck.
• 0:47
  Cassandra: You're in a space where you know what you're doing, or either what you'd like to do, you're not doing.
• 0:55
  Cassandra: You uh can't figure out why you can't do what you believe you should be.
• 1:02
  Cassandra: Like I'm gonna give you an example.
• 1:03
  Cassandra: One could be getting out of a relationship that's not working for you.
• 1:07
  Cassandra: Another one is to write a book, another one is to start a business, or it could be a new job and you just can't seem to get there.
• 1:16
  Cassandra: Uh, it could be a number of things.
• 1:18
  Cassandra: You know, you're going to a church, perhaps that's not where you're not getting fed, and you don't want to leave because that's where you grew up, or anything like that.
• 1:28
  Cassandra: So, in this podcast, we talk about topics related to personal improvement or personal growth.
• 1:35
  Cassandra: Um, in other words, overcoming personal, what I call self-imposed barriers.
• 1:41
  Cassandra: So, today our topic is titled Overcome the Skeletons of Your Past.
• 1:48
  Cassandra: Now, the the young lady Teresa Blaze, who I'm going to bring on, she is a living example of what happens when someone recognizes that the way they were taught isn't always the way God intended.
• 2:02
  Cassandra: Her message reinforces helping women stop standing in in their own way, but trust God more deeply and step into lives of purpose, impact, and fulfillment without regrets.
• 2:17
  Cassandra: And with that said, let me introduce you to the stage.
• 2:22
  Cassandra: To the stage, to Teresa Blaze.
• 2:25
  Cassandra: Hey Teresa.
• 2:26
  Cassandra: Hey, how you doing?
• 2:29
  Cassandra: I am doing well, and I appreciate you being on my show today.
• 2:33
  Teresa: Well, I appreciate the invite, and it's always an honor to come on these shows and share what God has given me.
• 2:40
  Cassandra: Amen.
• 2:41
  Cassandra: Amen.
• 2:41
  Cassandra: Now, before we get started, Teresa, I want to read your bio because I want individuals to understand what qualifies you to talk about what we're going to talk about.
• 2:52
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 2:53
  Cassandra: So Teresa Lays is a blind, Christ-centered author, podcaster, and serial entrepreneur who helps faith-driven individuals step boldly into business, ministry, and purpose.
• 3:09
  Cassandra: Alongside her husband, she runs a podcast production company that equips leaders and creators to amplify messages that matter.
• 3:19
  Cassandra: And it's called the Kadosh Media.
• 3:21
  Cassandra: Am I pronouncing that correctly, Teresa?
• 3:23
  Cassandra: No, it's actually Kadosh.
• 3:25
  Cassandra: Kadosh.
• 3:26
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 3:27
  Cassandra: And I'm I'm assuming Kadosh means something.
• 3:30
  Cassandra: Is there something in that name?
• 3:32
  Teresa: Yes, it does.
• 3:33
  Teresa: It's actually a Hebrew word.
• 3:35
  Teresa: It stands for Holy Set Apart or Other Than.
• 3:38
  Cassandra: Okay, Holly Set Apart and Other Than.
• 3:41
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 3:42
  Cassandra: So listen, so once believing the traditional path was the only road to success, Teresa discovered through over a decade of entrepreneurship that true fulfillment comes from obedience to God, financial education, and intentional marketing.
• 4:01
  Cassandra: Her work focuses on helping people start or scale online businesses and ministries so their message can reach those who need it most.
• 4:11
  Cassandra: Her journey is powerful.
• 4:13
  Cassandra: A powerful reminder that when faith leads, clarity follows and purpose unfolds.
• 4:20
  Cassandra: Wow.
• 4:21
  Cassandra: So my listeners, now you will understand based on our conversation what qualifies Teresa to talk about what we're getting ready to conversate about.
• 4:32
  Cassandra: So Teresa, tell us about your backstory and what led you to the ministry that you're in.
• 4:48
  Teresa: So I grew up in a very um in a very broken home.
• 4:55
  Teresa: So it actually, I believe that this whole thing started when I was a baby.
• 5:07
  Teresa: And there was an individual that there was an older gentleman, and he knelt down next to her to pray.
• 5:26
  Teresa: And she said she felt an almost indescribable sense of peace.
• 5:31
  Teresa: When she went to the nurses station to find this gentleman and thank him, she described what he looked like.
• 5:39
  Teresa: She said she had that he had a clerical collar and that you know he was an older gentleman.
• 5:45
  Teresa: When she described him to the nursing staff, they said no one by that description works at this hospital.
• 5:52
  Cassandra: So okay, let me let me let me go back a minute.
• 5:55
  Cassandra: Okay, so you were blind when you were born, you weren't expected to live.
• 6:00
  Cassandra: Is that what you said?
• 6:01
  Cassandra: Yes, ma'am.
• 6:03
  Cassandra: Okay, so what were you born with?
• 6:05
  Teresa: Were you born blind or what what I was born so I had I had Carter, I had uh one, I had eight heart attacks as a baby.
• 6:15
  Teresa: Um I um I had uh a clough palate, um, and then I had I have I was also born partially blind, so they and I had so I had cataracts removed.
• 6:30
  Teresa: Um but and I was also born jaundice, and I was I was really I was also like six weeks premature.
• 6:38
  Teresa: Oh wow, okay, okay so yeah, there was a lot of issues.
• 6:42
  Teresa: Um moving forward, you know, obviously the Lord had a his hand in that, right?
• 6:49
  Teresa: But moving forward, I meant what I said as far as like you know, I grew up in a very broken home because while I was in and out of hospitals, we were also dealing with some domestic violence stuff, and so what happened is um um fast forward to when I'm six years old, I had I had open heart surgery and I was recovering from open heart surgery, and my mom had a boyfriend.
• 7:22
  Teresa: She had gone out to get some medicine because I had a sister at the time.
• 7:26
  Teresa: She had gone out to get some medicine, and while she was gone, I was sitting on the bed uh watching TV, and her boyfriend, because my sister was sick, her boyfriend uh got up, went over to the crib, pulled my sister out and threw her.
• 7:51
  Cassandra: Wow.
• 7:51
  Teresa: So at the age of six years old, while recovering from open heart surgery, I was a witness to a murder.
• 7:57
  Cassandra: Oh wow.
• 8:01
  Teresa: Um this is only one story.
• 8:04
  Teresa: I have a bunch more stories of dealing in the medical side of things and and dealing with the domestic violence, and that is kind of the backdrop of what led me to faith and what led me to what I do now.
• 8:21
  Teresa: Because um I began to growing up, I began to hate God because obviously He did not care about me, because if he cared about me, none of this stuff would have been happening.
• 8:35
  Teresa: Okay, and I and because of that, he I really didn't care about him, and as long as we understood each other, we were good.
• 8:42
  Teresa: Okay.
• 8:42
  Teresa: Um, it took me going into my teen years and literally having an encounter with a demon for me to realize, oh, the supernatural is real.
• 8:51
  Teresa: What am I gonna do with it?
• 8:53
  Cassandra: Okay, so tell us about okay.
• 8:56
  Cassandra: Let me ask you this.
• 8:57
  Cassandra: When he threw your sister, you then was partially blind, so you were able to see witness that, correct?
• 9:04
  Cassandra: Yes, okay, and when he did that, um, did you tell your mom that happened?
• 9:15
  Teresa: No, he picked her up and he walked out with her.
• 9:17
  Teresa: I don't know.
• 9:18
  Teresa: My mom came back, and I don't know.
• 9:21
  Teresa: I know that uh 911 was called, and I know she was light flight or life flighted to Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 9:29
  Cassandra: Uh-huh.
• 9:29
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 9:30
  Teresa: Where um she was pronounced dead on October 20th, 1989.
• 9:37
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 9:37
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 9:38
  Cassandra: So you you you despised God, you told him that, and uh, and then you had an encounter with the demons, you would I said okay, yes, and and what happened?
• 9:55
  Teresa: Well, so I was going to the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind at the time, and that school was built on an Indian burial ground.
• 10:04
  Teresa: So naturally, there were ghost stories all over.
• 10:08
  Cassandra: Okay, okay.
• 10:09
  Teresa: I mean, you know, I and I kept hearing, oh, okay, yeah, whatever.
• 10:13
  Teresa: Okay, yeah, sure.
• 10:14
  Teresa: Okay, whatever.
• 10:15
  Teresa: Well, I was out with my friends and we were playing on the playground because the school was the kind of school where you stay at the school during the week, especially if you're long distance, okay, and and then you go home on the weekend, they take you home on the weekend.
• 10:27
  Teresa: Okay, all right, and so I'm out kind of it's about 8:30, close to nine o'clock, and I notice that a dorm light is on, and that the thing is that this the particular dorm was supposed to be empty because they weren't using it, and I'm like, why is that dorm light on?
• 10:45
  Teresa: So and I and my friends and I we notice it and we walk over and we're standing um we're standing um on the foyer or on the porch of of this dorm, and we're looking, we don't see anything in the in the in the foyer at all.
• 11:01
  Teresa: And we're like, okay, what is going on?
• 11:04
  Teresa: And I hear a female voice, it was echoey and it was ethereal, and it said, children.
• 11:13
  Teresa: I look at my friends, I'm like, you guys didn't just hear that, did you?
• 11:19
  Teresa: They're like, Oh yeah, we did, and I felt a sense of evil.
• 11:23
  Teresa: I felt something was wrong.
• 11:25
  Teresa: I felt something run down my spine.
• 11:27
  Teresa: I'm like, I'm gone, and I ran.
• 11:29
  Teresa: I've never run so hard in my life.
• 11:31
  Teresa: I didn't want to know what that thing was.
• 11:33
  Teresa: I firmly believe now it was not a ghost, I think it was a demonic spirit posing as a ghost because that's what they do.
• 11:40
  Teresa: Okay, okay, and it's and it said children, yes, okay, all right, so it knew that we were out there.
• 11:50
  Teresa: It was which tells me that the told me that this thing was intelligent, it knew that we were out there, and I believe God used that to show me the supernatural is real.
• 12:01
  Teresa: You've been avoiding it.
• 12:03
  Teresa: What are you gonna do with this now?
• 12:07
  Cassandra: Okay, all right.
• 12:08
  Cassandra: So that led you to believe in God?
• 12:14
  Teresa: No, it led me to start questioning because I needed to find answers.
• 12:18
  Teresa: What was it that I encountered?
• 12:19
  Teresa: I didn't know.
• 12:20
  Teresa: Was it a ghost?
• 12:21
  Teresa: I I had no clue.
• 12:23
  Teresa: Um, and so I started asking um questions, but I couldn't ask them of my mom because she was very opposed to Christianity.
• 12:33
  Cassandra: Okay, uh-huh.
• 12:34
  Teresa: Okay, and so like I started listening to secular stuff like Coast to Coast AM, which deals with anything paranormal, anything weird, they cover it from a secular standpoint.
• 12:46
  Teresa: So I was like, okay, I'm not quite sure what I'm dealing with here, but um, and then I ended up uh because my my family was moving to New Mexico, I ended up staying with my teacher, an English teacher who was a believer.
• 13:03
  Teresa: Okay, and because she was a believer, I stayed with her uh on the weekends because my family had to go to New Mexico to you know get a house and all that kind of thing, so I could fly out there, get a you know.
• 13:15
  Teresa: Well, she was a believer and she began to share the gospel with me.
• 13:21
  Teresa: And I was kind of in that place of okay, don't talk to me about your God till you can prove he exists.
• 13:28
  Teresa: Because I was I it wasn't that I didn't believe, but I was angry.
• 13:32
  Cassandra: Sure.
• 13:33
  Teresa: Okay, and so long story short, she shares the gospel with me.
• 13:39
  Teresa: Uh a lot of other things happen uh around that line.
• 13:43
  Teresa: I end up going back to New Mexico and I run across a show called Night Sounds by Bill Pierce.
• 13:51
  Cassandra: Night what?
• 13:52
  Teresa: Night Sounds.
• 13:54
  Cassandra: Okay, night sounds, yeah.
• 13:56
  Teresa: It's kind of a late night show, kind of a softer show, but you know, and he starts talking and he's like, I'm talking to someone who has heard this message before, and he presents the gospel again, and he goes, What do you have to lose?
• 14:10
  Teresa: And I finally just turned it off.
• 14:14
  Teresa: I hit my knees and I did business with God.
• 14:16
  Teresa: Okay, and that's when I that's when my journey of faith began.
• 14:23
  Cassandra: Okay, all right, okay.
• 14:25
  Cassandra: Um moving forward based on all you've experienced, and when you said, Okay, this is where I found God in my adversity.
• 14:48
  Cassandra: What happened after that for you?
• 14:52
  Cassandra: What what happened that led you to what you and your husband are doing now?
• 14:59
  Teresa: Okay, so moving forward, I I moved out of my home, I got married, and I my mom had always been the kind of person, hey, you're gonna go to college and do this and that.
• 15:13
  Cassandra: Uh-huh.
• 15:14
  Teresa: Well, I was like, but why?
• 15:17
  Teresa: But my mom was not the kind of person you questioned.
• 15:22
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 15:23
  Teresa: Um, and so I was like, okay, and then my husband was very entrepreneurial at the time.
• 15:32
  Teresa: He was doing eBay, and he introduced me to Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
• 15:38
  Teresa: And that book really, really wrecked me.
• 15:43
  Teresa: It changed my life.
• 15:44
  Cassandra: Oh, wow, awesome.
• 15:46
  Teresa: Uh, because I realized, oh, I don't have to go to college.
• 15:49
  Teresa: And then Mike was partnered up with a um another uh another gentleman to to repair computers because that's what he was doing.
• 16:00
  Teresa: And he actually sat there and said, Hey, I have this set of Gensu knives.
• 16:07
  Teresa: I want you to sell them on eBay for me.
• 16:11
  Teresa: And I didn't know anything about marketing or business or anything at that time, okay.
• 16:17
  Teresa: And so I wrote this ad, I knew a little bit of creative writing, so I wrote a story about these knives.
• 16:23
  Cassandra: Uh-huh.
• 16:24
  Teresa: Put it up on eBay, every single one of them sold.
• 16:26
  Teresa: Oh wow.
• 16:27
  Teresa: Okay.
• 16:28
  Teresa: And I'm like, that was interesting.
• 16:31
  Teresa: I just wrote this whole thing and made money.
• 16:33
  Teresa: Can I do that again?
• 16:34
  Teresa: And I was pretty much hooked at that point.
• 16:37
  Teresa: I was an entrepreneur.
• 16:38
  Teresa: I realized I didn't have to go to college, I didn't know what God was gonna do.
• 16:42
  Teresa: Uh, we've tried a lot of we tried a lot of different things uh entrepreneurially.
• 16:47
  Teresa: Um and then we got into podcasting originally uh because we needed to find a way to help get traffic to our clients because we were doing local marketing at the time.
• 16:59
  Teresa: Okay, and then my faith journey was taking some interesting turns because I had walked away from God for five years after losing my mom and the rest of my site in the same week.
• 17:11
  Cassandra: Oh wow.
• 17:13
  Teresa: And so I had I just said, you know what, I'm done.
• 17:15
  Teresa: I am done with you, I'm done, I'm I'm I'm I'm fed up.
• 17:20
  Teresa: Okay, and I walked away for five years and tried to do my own thing that didn't quite work, and then he brought me back and he asked me to write a book, and I was like, Oh no, oh no, who asked you to write a book?
• 17:41
  Teresa: God did.
• 17:43
  Teresa: Okay, he asked me to write this book, and I was like, Oh no, we are not.
• 17:47
  Teresa: I knew what he wanted, he wanted me to write about my childhood, and I was like, Oh no, we are not doing that.
• 17:52
  Teresa: And he goes, Well, if you're not ready to write a book, would you at least start a podcast?
• 17:56
  Teresa: Okay, and I said, Yeah, sure, I can do that.
• 18:01
  Teresa: And that's when my first phase-based podcast began, the Unresolved Life Podcast, see uh seeking answers to life's most difficult questions.
• 18:09
  Teresa: Okay, all right, okay, well, fast forward a little bit, it's Christmas of 2019.
• 18:17
  Teresa: And God was like, My people don't have a voice, and I want you to give it to them.
• 18:46
  Teresa: And then he that's when he gave us the idea and the framework for Kadosh Media.
• 18:52
  Cassandra: Okay, okay, all right.
• 18:55
  Cassandra: So by doing that, I want to go back to the title overcoming the skeletons of your past.
• 19:05
  Cassandra: Where did that come from?
• 19:09
  Teresa: I believe that every single person has skeletons in their past, whether they're a believer or they're not.
• 19:15
  Teresa: Um, and I uh for me, oh it started for me um in writing protected, which is the book that God asked me to write.
• 19:29
  Cassandra: Okay, writing protected.
• 19:32
  Teresa: Yep.
• 19:33
  Teresa: The book, the book is called Protected.
• 19:35
  Teresa: Um a story of survival, faith, and redemption.
• 19:43
  Cassandra: Okay, okay.
• 19:45
  Teresa: And so I literally was writing, and as I'm writing, I'm having to really think through some hard things that happened.
• 19:52
  Teresa: Um and I it really I realized, okay, yeah, I've gotten some healing, but I need a lot more.
• 20:01
  Teresa: Okay, and then God led me from there to learning to becoming a certified kingdom life coach.
• 20:08
  Teresa: Okay, okay, and so what I do is I help people find God in their story.
• 20:15
  Teresa: Because everybody everybody has skeletons, everybody has a story.
• 20:20
  Teresa: I help them find God in their story, and then for those that are ready, we help them share it through Kudosh Media.
• 20:28
  Cassandra: Okay, okay, let me ask you something.
• 20:30
  Cassandra: Now, because this podcast is titled Is Your Way in Your Way, and it's actually talking about self-imposed barriers where individuals get stuck.
• 20:41
  Cassandra: There's certain things that they want to do, but they don't do it, they can't do it.
• 20:45
  Cassandra: And listening to your story, in addition to you were partially blind, now you are fully blind, and it happened the year of your mom's passing.
• 20:56
  Cassandra: How did you overcome that?
• 21:00
  Cassandra: Well, you can talk to my listeners because, as you've indicated, everybody has a story.
• 21:05
  Cassandra: My listeners, everybody.
• 21:07
  Cassandra: So, you know, their story, it could be preventing them from moving forward.
• 21:14
  Cassandra: Um, so and I just finished talking to someone about how often we are blocked not by circumstances, but how we've been taught and we think.
• 21:26
  Cassandra: So you change your thoughts and your thinking for you to overcome, even though you face all these circumstances, and we all face something, but yet you have overcome it and you're doing something that you feel purposed to do.
• 21:45
  Cassandra: Is that correct?
• 21:46
  Cassandra: Yes.
• 21:48
  Teresa: Well, so for me, the way I overcame, well, first I had to come back to God.
• 21:54
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 21:55
  Teresa: I had to come back to God, uh, and and he orchestrated that, and he orchestrated my coming back to him uh in a really neat way.
• 22:03
  Teresa: It was at a women's retreat.
• 22:05
  Teresa: Um, and I was sitting uh at a table, we were about to pray, and I really didn't feel connected to him whatsoever.
• 22:16
  Teresa: I was just not in a good space with him, and he said, You're still angry at me about your blindness, aren't you?
• 22:22
  Teresa: And I was like, Yeah, and so sometimes it really just takes being willing to talk about the hard stuff.
• 22:32
  Teresa: Okay, that's and so he didn't really push that.
• 22:37
  Teresa: He didn't push it.
• 22:39
  Teresa: Um, 'cause the other factor to this is I got addicted to text based gaming, heavily addicted, really dark occultic gaming.
• 22:46
  Teresa: Oh wow.
• 22:48
  Teresa: Okay.
• 22:48
  Teresa: Okay.
• 22:49
  Teresa: And I and but he didn't come after me over the addiction.
• 22:52
  Teresa: He wanted my heart.
• 22:54
  Teresa: And so I believe one of the biggest barriers that we have is have we given him our heart?
• 23:01
  Teresa: Are we willing to let him in to the skeletons that we don't want to share with anyone?
• 23:07
  Teresa: Because that's where it starts.
• 23:11
  Teresa: I'm not saying you have to be suddenly have everything together.
• 23:15
  Teresa: No.
• 23:16
  Cassandra: Right.
• 23:16
  Teresa: I'm not saying you can't be angry at him.
• 23:18
  Teresa: No.
• 23:19
  Teresa: The fact is, he has big shoulders.
• 23:21
  Teresa: He can handle your anger.
• 23:22
  Teresa: And he would rather you come to him angry and have issues than to not talk to him at all.
• 23:28
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 23:29
  Cassandra: All right.
• 23:30
  Cassandra: So how do you how do you give God your heart?
• 23:33
  Cassandra: What are some steps that you took that enabled you to do that?
• 23:39
  Cassandra: And whereas you can share that with my listeners.
• 23:42
  Cassandra: How do you do that?
• 23:44
  Teresa: Well, first of all, I want to talk to the person who may not know him at all.
• 23:48
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 23:49
  Teresa: Um, the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
• 23:54
  Teresa: The Bible says that there's none righteous, not even one.
• 23:58
  Teresa: That means we can't earn our way to heaven.
• 24:01
  Cassandra: Right.
• 24:02
  Teresa: There's a lot of people think that hey, God helps those that helps themselves, and if I'm good enough, no, it don't work that way.
• 24:08
  Teresa: Because we can't be good enough.
• 24:10
  Teresa: We can't.
• 24:12
  Teresa: So I believe it comes down to the ABCs.
• 24:16
  Teresa: A, admit that you're a sinner.
• 24:19
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 24:20
  Teresa: B, believe that Christ is who he says he is, God, full, fully God and fully man, that he that he lived a life we could not live, a completely perfect one, that he died on the cross, rose again, and he's coming back in bodily form.
• 24:35
  Teresa: C, confess it.
• 24:38
  Teresa: Share it with someone.
• 24:39
  Teresa: The Bible says if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord uh and and God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
• 24:50
  Cassandra: Okay, all right.
• 24:51
  Teresa: Okay, that I believe is the first step to giving him your heart.
• 24:56
  Cassandra: Okay, okay.
• 25:00
  Teresa: The second step for the believer.
• 25:02
  Teresa: If you've been a believer for quite a long time, but you've got areas that little I want you to imagine, close your eyes.
• 25:10
  Teresa: Imagine you've got rooms, you've got some, you kind of let him in the foyer.
• 25:14
  Teresa: You know, hey, I love you.
• 25:16
  Teresa: Thank you so much for dying for me.
• 25:18
  Teresa: You know, you're in my heart.
• 25:19
  Teresa: Welcome, welcome.
• 25:21
  Teresa: But you've got these other rooms, you got the door padlocked, you've got everything, and in these rooms are contained all those dark things you don't want him to see.
• 25:29
  Teresa: Okay, uh-huh.
• 25:30
  Teresa: It comes down to this are you willing to let him in?
• 25:35
  Teresa: And how and how do you do that?
• 25:37
  Teresa: Say, Lord, this happened, I need to talk to you about it.
• 25:41
  Teresa: And what that means is if you talk to him and you share it with him and you ask him, where were you when this happened?
• 25:53
  Teresa: Where were you in this?
• 25:55
  Teresa: He does not mind your questions.
• 25:59
  Teresa: In fact, he would rather you ask them.
• 26:04
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 26:04
  Cassandra: So it's okay to question God.
• 26:09
  Teresa: I believe it is, yes.
• 26:10
  Teresa: Okay.
• 26:11
  Teresa: All right.
• 26:11
  Teresa: Um in in uh Isaiah 1 6, he said, um um, he says, Come let us reason together.
• 26:19
  Teresa: Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.
• 26:25
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 26:26
  Cassandra: All right.
• 26:28
  Cassandra: So in your business, um you said well, you talked about your faith guided you through entrepreneurship challenges.
• 26:42
  Cassandra: Give us an example of a challenge that you've had and how faith guided you through that.
• 26:54
  Teresa: So I believe that a lot of entrepreneurship is in who you work with and who you don't.
• 27:02
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 27:04
  Teresa: So when we were working with um as a um uh when we were working in a local marketing or local marketing company at the time.
• 27:13
  Teresa: Okay, we got a hold, we had a comic book provider contact us.
• 27:19
  Teresa: All right.
• 27:19
  Teresa: And we and we started uh uh questioning him and exp and uh why and you know, and hey, what do you need?
• 27:26
  Teresa: What do you need us to do?
• 27:27
  Teresa: That kind of thing.
• 27:29
  Cassandra: Right.
• 27:30
  Teresa: Well, long story short, he starts kind of hemming and hawing and telling us that hey, I need to talk to my partners.
• 27:36
  Teresa: Well, long what we found out, his partners were the mob.
• 27:40
  Teresa: Oh, okay.
• 27:42
  Cassandra: And we were like, what did the mob want to do with the comic book?
• 27:48
  Teresa: They were using it as a front front so that they could have uh clean money coming in and and funnel that money elsewhere.
• 27:55
  Cassandra: And what did they want you guys to do as entrepreneurs?
• 27:59
  Teresa: Market market their comic book, yeah.
• 28:01
  Teresa: Mark, and I'm like, oh no, we are not in bed with them.
• 28:05
  Teresa: Nope.
• 28:06
  Teresa: Uh we pretty much went the other direction.
• 28:09
  Teresa: So sometimes you know, it's a really discerning, you have to really listen and go, God, what am I dealing with?
• 28:15
  Teresa: Because there was just there was just something off before we found out we knew there was just something off, but we couldn't put a finger on it, and God finally showed us, and the guy admitted, yeah, it's the mob.
• 28:24
  Teresa: And I'm like, Yeah, nope, we're not doing this.
• 28:26
  Teresa: Nope.
• 28:27
  Teresa: So sometimes faith comes by discernment.
• 28:31
  Cassandra: Okay, okay, okay, all right.
• 28:35
  Cassandra: So that's that's a great example.
• 28:38
  Cassandra: Um, you talked about entrepreneurship has to be aligned with biblical principles.
• 28:48
  Cassandra: Yep.
• 28:49
  Cassandra: Give us an example of what that means.
• 28:57
  Teresa: Well, I had a um, there are certain types of companies that Mike and I will not work with at all.
• 29:05
  Cassandra: Okay, all right.
• 29:06
  Teresa: We will not work with anyone involved in New Age, occult astrology, or anyone promoting things like um abortion or other things that we find that we are not in agreement with at all.
• 29:17
  Cassandra: Okay, why?
• 29:19
  Teresa: Because our Bible says you don't you don't become equally yoked with these things for what does it have to do with darkness?
• 29:26
  Cassandra: Okay, okay, okay.
• 29:30
  Cassandra: So it sounds like everything you have been through, past, uh, present, and moving forward, that God is in the story, like you found God in the story.
• 29:46
  Cassandra: Uh, even when the enemy was in that schoolroom saying, Children, even though you were angry with God, but yet through it all, you found God in that, right?
• 29:58
  Teresa: Yep, I did, I did, you know, and and and you know, there have been many times where I literally have been almost killed.
• 30:05
  Teresa: The enemy tried to kill me multiple times.
• 30:08
  Teresa: Why?
• 30:09
  Teresa: Because he knew that I would find God, that you know, and I want to be that Christian that the gates of hell are scared every time I wake up, right?
• 30:21
  Cassandra: Okay, all right, okay.
• 30:23
  Cassandra: So as a result of your relationship with God, what in your life has changed?
• 30:35
  Teresa: Everything.
• 30:36
  Teresa: Um I am you know, it's funny.
• 30:42
  Teresa: I'm I'm listening to him.
• 30:46
  Teresa: Like I have to do I have to have a couple of surgeries coming up, uh, one on the 29th and then one in February.
• 30:53
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 30:54
  Teresa: And I was praying about can we combine them into one surgery, for example?
• 31:00
  Teresa: And instead of just making my own decision, I stopped and I prayed.
• 31:05
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 31:06
  Teresa: And I heard the voice of my father tell me, no, this will be too hard on your body.
• 31:11
  Teresa: Do two of them.
• 31:12
  Teresa: Okay, that's the key.
• 31:16
  Teresa: Can you when you have a relationship with the king of the universe?
• 31:21
  Teresa: That means he's interested in what you're doing.
• 31:25
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 31:25
  Cassandra: So you seek him in everything.
• 31:31
  Cassandra: I do.
• 31:32
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 31:32
  Cassandra: All right.
• 31:34
  Teresa: You know, I mean, I'm maybe not everything.
• 31:36
  Teresa: I mean, there were time, you know, there were times I'm still human, and so that there were times I do things in my own strength and stupid and all that kind of thing, you know.
• 31:44
  Teresa: But my heart is I want him involved in everything.
• 31:47
  Cassandra: Mm-hmm.
• 31:48
  Cassandra: That's good.
• 31:50
  Cassandra: That's great.
• 31:51
  Cassandra: So, Teresa, tell my listeners, those who are stuck and wanting to move forward, have these self-imposed barriers preventing them from move forward?
• 32:06
  Cassandra: What would you say to my listeners to help them overcome it and time?
• 32:13
  Cassandra: What is it that they should be doing?
• 32:15
  Teresa: Well, first of all, you I need to identify is it is there something like actionable that you can be doing right now?
• 32:22
  Teresa: I always talk, one of the things that I talk about is what is your next one thing?
• 32:28
  Teresa: See, I believe like it's not about doing a bunch of tasks, right?
• 32:34
  Teresa: It's about doing what is the one thing that that will move your needle forward.
• 32:38
  Teresa: Okay, okay, in whatever you're doing, whatever you're trying to do, what is that one thing?
• 32:43
  Teresa: If you can focus on that, then anything else is gravy.
• 32:47
  Cassandra: Okay, so let me ask you this.
• 32:50
  Cassandra: Sorry to interrupt.
• 32:51
  Cassandra: Let's say there's someone trying to working on trying to find a different job, they know what they're currently doing is not what they want to do, or it's someone that has been laid off and want to find something different.
• 33:11
  Cassandra: What steps would you tell them to take as far as that?
• 33:14
  Teresa: I would actually first start with prayer.
• 33:17
  Teresa: Okay, and I and if you remember, I want to go back to a story in the Bible because I think it has some some um uh application here.
• 33:25
  Teresa: Uh-huh.
• 33:26
  Teresa: Do you remember the burning bush incident with Moses?
• 33:30
  Cassandra: I do.
• 33:32
  Teresa: And Moses tells God, Hey, I'm not a good speaker.
• 33:34
  Teresa: I no, no, that's not me.
• 33:36
  Teresa: Right.
• 33:37
  Teresa: I don't, you know, and I'm I'm afraid that you know, he comes up with all these excuses, right?
• 33:41
  Teresa: And God knocks him down one by one.
• 33:43
  Teresa: Okay, I'm gonna give you Aaron, he'll speak for you.
• 33:45
  Teresa: Finally, Moses, like, uh, but but what is the you know, what if they don't hear me?
• 33:50
  Teresa: What if they don't whatever?
• 33:51
  Teresa: And God goes, What's in your hand?
• 33:54
  Teresa: A stick, okay.
• 33:56
  Teresa: Take that stick, throw it on the ground.
• 33:58
  Teresa: Comes a snake, right?
• 34:00
  Teresa: All right, okay.
• 34:01
  Teresa: Hey, yo, take the snake, pick it back up, become turns back into a stick.
• 34:06
  Teresa: What's my point with this?
• 34:08
  Teresa: What was the key question there?
• 34:11
  Teresa: What's in your hand?
• 34:13
  Teresa: Okay, what's in your hand that you can actually do right now?
• 34:19
  Teresa: If you've been laid off, or maybe maybe you have an ability that others don't.
• 34:24
  Cassandra: Uh-huh.
• 34:25
  Teresa: Maybe you've been laid off, maybe you're called to do something, to start something.
• 34:28
  Teresa: I believe that we all have a field of favor, whether you're looking for a job or wanting to start a business or whatever.
• 34:33
  Teresa: You have a specific group of people that you were called to serve.
• 34:37
  Teresa: So, my question to you is what's in your hand?
• 34:41
  Teresa: Who has God called you to serve?
• 34:45
  Cassandra: Okay, right.
• 34:46
  Cassandra: It's called it's kind of like what's in your way?
• 34:49
  Cassandra: Self-doubt, fear.
• 34:51
  Cassandra: Oh, yeah, yep.
• 34:53
  Teresa: And those, oh yeah, and see the thing is, what does God say?
• 34:56
  Teresa: He says, I have not given you a spirit of fear.
• 34:59
  Teresa: Oh, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.
• 35:01
  Teresa: If God hasn't given that to you, it must by nature come from somewhere else, i.e., the kingdom of darkness.
• 35:08
  Teresa: Okay, if I if God has not given it to you, but of power, love, and a sound mind, then that means you are allowing the enemy to have a place in your life.
• 35:21
  Teresa: Okay, so you need to take authority over that and rebuke the enemy and say, No, I do not serve you.
• 35:29
  Teresa: So, for example, if we're dealing with the spirit of fear, then what I would do is I would say, Lord, I put on the whole armor of God, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, shoes of the gospel of peace.
• 35:43
  Teresa: I pick up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and the shield of faith to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.
• 35:50
  Teresa: I ask you to help me to stand as you commanded me in your word to stand.
• 35:55
  Teresa: And I speak to any dark spirit, entity, force power, or dark technology, especially you, you spirit of fear, and I say, The Lord rebuke you, the blood of the Lamb be upon you.
• 36:06
  Teresa: Okay, you start there.
• 36:09
  Teresa: There's more to it, but you start there, and you take your authority and you keep and you deal with that spirit of fear.
• 36:16
  Teresa: Because once you get that thing out of your life, then you can ask God for his peace, for his saloon.
• 36:21
  Teresa: Okay, okay, you ask God for his peace, then you can actually think clearly of what to do.
• 36:30
  Cassandra: Okay, okay.
• 36:31
  Cassandra: So, Teresa, you know those scriptures, and you know that because of your relationship that you've built with God, you've read the word, um, so that's how you are able to recite and and and share what God says about a situation.
• 36:51
  Cassandra: Now, we have some listeners that have not read the word.
• 36:54
  Cassandra: So, what you're saying is the way that you've overcome, and maybe you've not fully overcome, but you got to a point where you're an entrepreneur, you and your husband are doing your own thing, is by the grace of God and by the help and and the relationship you've had, that has been half of your battle.
• 37:17
  Cassandra: You've you've come this far by faith, based on all that you've been through and all that you've done.
• 37:24
  Cassandra: So, what you're saying to my listeners, perhaps those that not have not read the word, what you're doing is is hope hopefully or prayerfully, as they listen to this podcast, and they'll be like, you know, what do I have to lose?
• 37:39
  Cassandra: Maybe we'll start reading the word, you know, or maybe I will ask God to come in my life, or maybe I will ask God to give me direction.
• 37:47
  Cassandra: So, based on our conversation, it sounds like that is what you are sharing with the audience because that has helped you.
• 37:55
  Cassandra: And one of the main things is overcoming the skeletons of your past because a lot of times our backstory has a lot to do with our life today.
• 38:05
  Cassandra: Absolutely, yes, I absolutely okay.
• 38:10
  Cassandra: So, Teresa, how can my listeners get in touch with you?
• 38:15
  Teresa: Um, you can find me on the socials.
• 38:17
  Teresa: Um, I'm on Facebook, um, um at Coach Teresa Plaze, I'm on uh I'm on Threads, I'm on Twitter, Teresa Blaes One.
• 38:28
  Teresa: if you want to follow the storyUh, of Protected, uh, I am releasing it in March.
• 38:36
  Teresa: I may be pushing it back, but but so right now the we the the date is a March date.
• 38:41
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 38:42
  Teresa: Um, and and so you can actually go and sign up, and and I release a newsletter once a week to you know talking about what's going on.
• 38:50
  Teresa: You can find that at protectedbook.com.
• 38:53
  Cassandra: Okay.
• 38:54
  Teresa: If you if someone wants to um uh get some help with whatever they're doing, whether it's a podcast, uh publishing a book or video creation or whatever they need, um you can find us at Kadosh Media, K-A-D-O-S-H Media.com forward slash consult.
• 39:15
  Teresa: Go ahead and book a time with us.
• 39:16
  Teresa: We would love to sit down with you and see how we can help you.
• 39:19
  Cassandra: Oh, perfect.
• 39:20
  Cassandra: That's great.
• 39:21
  Cassandra: Thanks for sharing your information.
• 39:23
  Cassandra: Wow.
• 39:24
  Cassandra: Well, Teresa, thanks so much for being on the show.
• 39:28
  Cassandra: Uh what you've shared.
• 39:31
  Cassandra: I am certain a lot of my listeners have resonated with what you are saying.
• 39:37
  Cassandra: And I also believe there's someone or a couple of some ones based on this conversation that they will now want to have a relationship with God and now understanding how to do that.
• 39:51
  Cassandra: And number one, as you indicated, pray about it, ask them to show you how you can have that relationship, and uh and he and it really and I and I'll just say this it comes down to John 3:16.
• 40:02
  Teresa: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
• 40:06
  Teresa: Whosoever believes in him, that includes you, right?
• 40:10
  Teresa: Whoever's listening, whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
• 40:17
  Cassandra: That's beautiful, that's beautiful, Teresa.
• 40:20
  Cassandra: What a way to um close our podcast today.
• 40:24
  Cassandra: That was a that was a great scripture to close with.
• 40:28
  Cassandra: And with that said, I appreciate you and I ask my listeners, um, for those where this podcast has resonated with you, and you have friends that you know this would bless them, please share it with them.
• 40:42
  Cassandra: Please share it with them, and you can play the podcast over and over and over again.
• 40:48
  Cassandra: And again, Teresa, thank you.
• 40:50
  Cassandra: My listeners, thank you.
• 40:52
  Cassandra: God bless you all, and bye for now.
• 40:56
  Cassandra: Thanks again, Teresa.
• 40:58
  Cassandra: Thank you.