Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / How Movement, Scripture, and Community Lead Us Through the Valley | Jennifer Neufeld

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How Movement, Scripture, and Community Lead Us Through the Valley | Jennifer Neufeld · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast. For My Dad, Coach
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Alex Van Houghten helps to get stronger and mind, body,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and spirit. He believes that your body is a temple,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: so taking good care of it is an actual worship.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I should know.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I live with him. Every week. He brings truth from
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the Bible, tool of some science and stories that will
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: set your heart on fire. May God bless you to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: become everything He made you to be, just one percent
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: better every single day.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Hey there, and welcome back to the Faithful Fitness Podcast.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: I'm your host, coach Alex vn Houghton, and I'm super
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: excited about today's episode.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Big question, what.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: If You're healing was meant to begin on a hiking
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: trail and not in a therapist's office. That's what I'm
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: gonna be talking about today with our guest Jennifer Neufeld,
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: the founder of Fresh Journey Stick Around. We're going to
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: be talking about tools that you can use in your
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: life and in the lives of your loved ones, the
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: core method for processing trauma and grief with honesty and hope.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: And we're gonna be talking about the neuroscience of loss.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: You're not gonna want to miss this. Also, if you
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: haven't picked up your copy of the Faithful Fitness devotional,
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: you need to go to Better Daily, Dot Live, slash
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: devo and pick up your pre signed copy today. We're
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: gonna have an awesome launch party when the book comes out,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: and I want you to be a part of it.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: That's Better Daily, Dot Live, slash Devo.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: One, two, three, what's up, guys. This is coach Alex
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Vann Houghton on the Faithful Fitness Podcast. Thank you so
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: much for joining us today. I'm so excited about this conversation, actually,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: maybe more strangely excited than I should be in a
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: conversation about grief and processing grief with miss Jennifer new Fellow, Jennifer,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: how are you today?
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Good?
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: Nice to be here.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad to have you.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: We are two hours different, so I've had a bit
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: more coffee than you have thus far.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: So yeah to the listeners.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: If I'm overwhelmingly energetic, it's not because Jennifer's not. It's
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: because she needs two more hours of coffee and maybe
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: a good hike under her belt.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: So I want to dive right into this conversation.
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  Speaker 3: You are working with individuals to help them overcome grief
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: in a very unique way and maybe not overcome, maybe
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: walk through. I think that's something we can talk about
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: here today. I want to start by asking you how
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: your enterprise Fresh Journey started, was, what was kind of
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: the place that it began, and what are you guys
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: doing in the world right now?
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: All right, Well, so Fresh Journey actually started right before
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: the pandemic and after I had completed walking through my
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: own seasons of grief for about nine ten years.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: So I had done a lot of a lot.
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: Of work, a lot of group work, a lot of
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  Speaker 5: my own counseling to work through.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Difficult seasons in marriage with children.
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: You know, obviously we all come with our own baggage
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: from growing up and all of those things to kind
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: of work through. And just as the pandemic was starting,
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: I had already had the idea going that fresh journey,
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: which is freedom, rest and encouragement for your soul and
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: healing journey. And so I had this, I had this
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: vision of having a community of people who enjoyed getting
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: out in nature and just working through the challenges of life,
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: because that's how I made it through. And so I've
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: developed a pathway of sorts based off of what my
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: own counselor told me as I showed up.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: You know, just a wreck of tears as my life.
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  Speaker 5: You know, I give the image of falling into a
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  Speaker 5: pit or into a canyon kind of as what grief
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: feels like.
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  Speaker 4: And so you know, you're.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: You're trying to claw your way up the hill after
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: you kind of realize where.
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  Speaker 4: You are and everything's falling on you, and you know,
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  Speaker 4: you just.
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  Speaker 5: Get battered and bruised by the whole the whole experience.
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  Speaker 5: And so asking my counselor, I was like, how am
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  Speaker 5: I even going to survive this?
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  Speaker 2: Yes?
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  Speaker 4: You know what, what.
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  Speaker 5: What can I do that's going to help me get
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  Speaker 5: through this? Let alone even get better?
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 5: So, so she's she drew out three little circles and
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  Speaker 5: labeled them physical, emotional, and spiritual, and then she explained
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  Speaker 5: to me, you're going to do one thing in each
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  Speaker 5: one of these categories every day and you're.
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  Speaker 4: Gonna be okay, okay, all right.
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  Speaker 5: So in that I had found evlation wellness within the
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  Speaker 5: season of grief that I had already been active a
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  Speaker 5: little bit with, and so I just said, okay, well,
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  Speaker 5: then you know, my revelation wellness fits into my my
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  Speaker 5: physical category and being able to listen to podcasts that
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  Speaker 5: encourage me spiritually, emotionally and you know, get me out.
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  Speaker 4: Moving my body. And so I used.
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: I use those a lot, and I encourage people even
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: today to use those tools and resources to get out
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  Speaker 5: there and care for our bodies and to you know,
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  Speaker 5: use the resources that are already there that people are
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: putting their whole lives and ministries into serving others, and
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  Speaker 5: you know, we can we can benefit from each other.
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  Speaker 5: And I love that about my Revelation Wellness community.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, So.
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  Speaker 5: Right before the pandemic, I kind of had this vision
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  Speaker 5: going already, and then all of a sudden, you know,
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  Speaker 5: our world stopped, and I decided to just put it
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  Speaker 5: on Facebook book and try it out in a couple
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  Speaker 5: of different hiking communities.
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  Speaker 4: Hey, I'm going to be out on.
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  Speaker 5: The trail at our local park that has some hills,
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  Speaker 5: and you know, I'm going to be out there for
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  Speaker 5: my own mental and physical health and if you want
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  Speaker 5: to come and join me, you know, And.
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  Speaker 3: Strangely enough, people, now, now, where where are you in
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: the world that that people will I'm in.
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  Speaker 4: The Bakersfield, California area.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so we're in.
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  Speaker 5: The large central valley. We have the Sierra Nevauta Mountains
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: real close. But yeah, our area is mostly crops and farmland.
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  Speaker 2: I see.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm just baffled by the idea that around the
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: time of the pandemic you offer people an opportunity to
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  Speaker 3: come join you physically for.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, a mental health hike. It sounds like, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: they could have taken it that way there.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's at that point it was very much
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  Speaker 5: about mental health.
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  Speaker 4: I had.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they showed up and what did you do?
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  Speaker 5: And some of them, some of them wore their masks,
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  Speaker 5: but many didn't. You know, we were outdoors and we
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: felt comfortable enough to be walking and talking and sharing
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: our journeys.
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  Speaker 4: And yeah, some.
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  Speaker 5: Of those people that started with me out back then
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  Speaker 5: have now started their own hiking groups. Back back then,
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: there was only really one local hiking group, and.
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  Speaker 4: It wasn't always welcoming to New Bees.
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  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 5: So back in twenty eighteen is when I hiked the
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: Grand Canyon with Revelation Wellness, and so I did the
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  Speaker 5: Rim to Him hike, you know, which is an intense
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  Speaker 5: season of training yeah, and in the middle of that,
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  Speaker 5: I was walking my own season of grief and very
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: very much felt connected to that canyon. And so yeah,
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  Speaker 5: so in in my in my training and trying to
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  Speaker 5: find groups that were out there, you know, helping people.
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  Speaker 4: Learn about hiking and get connected and stuff.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I got left behind a couple of times because
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: I couldn't keep up. Oh man, didn't get a lot
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  Speaker 5: of encouragement, you know, saying You're never going to make
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  Speaker 5: it across the.
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  Speaker 4: Canyon at this pace.
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  Speaker 5: And I just had to tell myself, I'm going to
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  Speaker 5: make it across the canyon just like everybody else, one
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  Speaker 5: step at a time.
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  Speaker 2: Just me and God.
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  Speaker 4: It's just one step at a time. That's how everybody's
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  Speaker 4: going to make it.
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  Speaker 5: Across, right, and so and Revelation Wellness was super, super
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  Speaker 5: encouraging and the all the all.
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  Speaker 4: The instructors and guides were We're just what my soul needed.
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  Speaker 5: And so I felt very connected to that, and that's
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  Speaker 5: what I wanted to offer people as the pandemic and
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  Speaker 5: all the things.
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  Speaker 4: You know, we all have our.
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  Speaker 5: Own seasons of life and challenges, and you know, so
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  Speaker 5: many people show up they've just become divorced or they
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  Speaker 5: have aging parents who have moved in and they're caring
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  Speaker 5: for them special needs children, you know, and they just
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  Speaker 5: need that space that's something for themselves to kind of
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  Speaker 5: pour into. And you know, if they're willing to try hiking,
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  Speaker 5: it's really fun to get to connect and lead them through,
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  Speaker 5: you know, the growth.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, thank you for the origin story there,
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  Speaker 3: and i'd like to talk about what you guys are
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: up to at the moment and what with the next
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: steps in the journey of fresh journey is. But I'm
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  Speaker 3: I'm very interested in a couple of things here. One
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  Speaker 3: of the first things I'm interested in is I read
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  Speaker 3: a lot of literature in the exercise science community, and
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  Speaker 3: I read a lot of literature in the psychology community.
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  Speaker 3: And it's not like you can you can pull, like
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  Speaker 3: you can cherry pick some research sources on this subject,
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  Speaker 3: but it's not like a screaming billboard somewhere that hiking
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  Speaker 3: is a very powerful methodology for actually taking steps through
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  Speaker 3: And I don't mean that as a dad joke because
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: it could be, but actually taking steps through trauma, processing
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  Speaker 3: and grief. And I know that in my own personal journey.
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  Speaker 3: I've learned that in the journeys of many of my clients.
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  Speaker 3: Sounds like you have also learned that in your personal
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: journey and working with with groups and whatnot. What do
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: you think and maybe maybe this might tie to your
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: own personal experience with walking through grief. What do you
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  Speaker 3: think it is about hiking that makes it so powerful
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  Speaker 3: in the process of working through grief?
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  Speaker 4: Well, so a couple of my own thoughts.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, in that betrail, right, it leads you to someplace, right,
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  Speaker 5: So there is a pathway through. And often when we're
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: dropped into grief, we don't see the path. We can't
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  Speaker 5: we can't see that this is even you know, a
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  Speaker 5: good part of a story. Let alone, you know something
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  Speaker 5: we want to walk And so in following a trail
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  Speaker 5: you learn there are markers, there are you know, resources
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  Speaker 5: there at each step. You've got a watering hole, you've
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: got a bathroom break, you need to stop and fuel,
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: you know. So there's these the are there are these
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  Speaker 5: markers that we can kind of travel through and and
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  Speaker 5: doing it repeatedly right kind of tails your brain to
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  Speaker 5: calm down that you're gonna get through this, that there
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: is an end to this. And and in doing the
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: hard things right, training for the Grand Canyon in the
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: middle of processing a very life disrupting event with my
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: children us. It was quite frankly exhausting, yes, and life giving. Right, So,
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: how do you train for a marathon? Right? You can't
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: do it without training for a marathon out across a
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  Speaker 5: grand canyon.
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  Speaker 4: And so it.
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  Speaker 5: It involved me making an investment in my time and
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  Speaker 5: energy and and doing hard things that would build my
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: ability to physically and both mentally, you know, ascend out
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: of that canyon, and to do so.
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  Speaker 4: At my own pace.
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  Speaker 2: I like the picture of grief.
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: Grief all going to go through grief at our own pace,
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  Speaker 5: and it's you know, the trails are similar, but they're
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: never all identical.
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  Speaker 3: Right, Well, I like I like that picture of grief,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: by the way, being in the Grand Canyon because because
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: like grief is definitely not like your normal functioning level,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: it feels a lot like being in the pit. I
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: think the Psalmist says the pit a lot, or the
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: valley of the shadow of death. As Psalmist three says,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: like this very terrible place, but but it's it's cool
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: on that ascension front.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I read a very powerful book on the science.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Of grief, and I just pulled it up here because
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: I was I was interested in Doctor Mary Francis O'Connor
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: wrote a book called The Grieving Brain. But she described
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: it this way because I actually read this book because
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: we lost my wife's father just a couple of years ago,
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: and I was as as a man trying to lead
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: my four year old and my seven year old through
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: a grieving process well, and I couldn't.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I couldn't tell you.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: That I knew how to grieve well, you know, like
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: I had wrestled with my own grief in life, but
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: I was I was an adult and I was adulting,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: and I wasn't doing it great, but I was doing
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: my best. And but but she describes it this way
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: because when we think about the science of grief, it's like,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: what's actually happening up here? And what we've what we've
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: learned in neuroscience is that there's a portion of our
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: brain that when when we have a loved one or
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: a situation that we're comfortable and confident with and that
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: goes away, there's a portion of our brain that sees
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: that as lasting as forever. So I have a loved
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: one and I can't imagine them not being there. I
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: don't know what that's like, so that it's called permanence.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: I have permanence in my mind of that individual. But
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: in grief, what happens is there's another part of my
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: brain that understands they're gone, and so I have permanence
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: and they're gone, and those two parts of my brain
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: don't talk to each other. Then they don't naturally communicate,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: and so you can have like a you can have
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: This was the case in losing my wife's father, the
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: boy's grandfather. The widow are my mother in law, the
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: boy's grandmother. She would go to the grocery store and
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: she would grab his favorite things and put them in
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: the cart and then break down crying a couple miles
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: over when she realized she was not bringing these home
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: to him because he's not there, right Because the part
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: of the brain that's like, oh, every time I've ever
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: gone grocery shopping for the last forty years, I grab
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: this thing because this is his thing that he loves.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: And then two aisles over the part of the brain
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: that's like, he's not at home when you get there, and.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: They're like dealing with each other.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: And the scientific way that you manage that is you
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: break down crying, like that's the physiological response in that
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: moment when those two parts of the brain aren't speaking together.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: But one of the things she finds in this particular
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: trek through the grief work is that exercise is actually
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: way more beneficial when those two parts of the brain
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: are fighting with each other then crumpling into a ball
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: and crying. Not to say that if you crumple into
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: ball and cry, you're wrong. That there is something about
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: movement that helps you battle through that process in a
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: way that those parts of your brain can start to talk,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: that they can actually communicate in a way that doesn't
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: doesn't devastate you. Now as I'm speaking, I imagine there's
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: some things coming to your mind when it comes to
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: your own story and maybe the story of your clients.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Do you care to add or share?
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: No, Actually, I'm finding that fascinating because I can understand
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: that experientially, and I do know that journaling equally kind
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: of connects those two disconnected parts. Yes, and so I do.
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: I do have a journal prompt that I developed and
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: pretty much have used daily for the last ten years.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Do you mind sharing that I would love to hear it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, so I've got that in the in the
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: link that I sent you. So yeah, but that my
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: counselor helped explain to me that as we process, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: especially handwriting, she said, you know kind of like releases
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: things from our brain and then allows us to like
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: take a more step back look at them, right, so
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: you actually see them written on the page, and you're
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: able to now take your emotional brain and your your
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: rational brain and to kind of evaluate, is that really
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: the choice I want to make? Because a lot of
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: times what we want to do, or what we feel
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: instantly is the right fix isn't going to work. Yes,
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: right and so and and my journals are messy. I
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: tell people they you wouldn't be You wouldn't think that
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: I'm this nice person if you looked at my journal
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: because I have a.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: Right but I've learned that I can't act on all
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: of them, right.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: So absolutely absolutely, And you know that's the thing, right,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: If you have chatter on two sides of your brain,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: you're trying to put them together. You as a cohesive
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: individual is the product of putting those things together. But
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: if if and I mean I would hazard to say,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: anybody listening or watching this, if you if you could
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: be in your brain not just yours, mine and any
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: as they go. I don't know if anybody needs to
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: be up there. It'd be very confusing place.
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So I tell my kids, you know, all the time,
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: I'm like, you might have thoughts and ideas on things
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: you want to do or need to do in this moment,
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: but take a minute step back. Is that really the
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: direction we want to.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Go with our lives?
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: So, so coming back to this picture of hiking, you
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: mentioned several things in there, the path, like knowing there's
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: a path that I can go at my own pace. Right,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Two things came to mind while you were speaking that
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: that I think are true of my experience to One
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: of the things in hiking is that it's what's what's
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: cool is it's a physical manifestation of the reality there's
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: no way out but to keep going, Like like if
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: you if you're hiking out in the middle of nowhere
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: and you can't even and you just sit down, like
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, short of getting a GPS signal out to
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: nine to one one, like like, there's no there's no
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: way out, like you you have to keep going. And
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: griefs a lot like that, like you can go at
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: your own pace. There are many paths through It's it's
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: not easy, but the only way out is to put
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: one foot in front of the other. Really, yeah, like
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: that's the only only way grief processes forward.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: So I like that about hiking as on that front.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: And I think, finally, what I love about hiking in
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: relationship to the grief aspect is is there are oftentimes
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: in hiking. I don't know how this feels for you,
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: there are oftentimes in hiking where I'm following the path
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: and following the path and following the path, but then
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: I stop and I look up and I just appreciate
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: the beauty of what's around me, and I appreciate the
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: moment I check in with my breath. I love the
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: feeling of being out here. I love the smells. I
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: love the sounds. You know, there's a waterfall, there's a mountaintop,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: there's a there's a snake. You know, there's there's stuff
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: and griefs.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Like that too.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Like there's there's the process of putting the one foot
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: in front of the other. There's the climb, there's difficult
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: things to manage and stuff. But sometimes you stop and
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: appreciate the beauty of maybe the memories you had, or
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: the beauty of how far you've come, or the just
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: the beauty of the moment. I feel like hiking kind
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: of core correlates to that too.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Is there anything you would add to that picure?
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: Yah, Yeah, definitely. That's I think I've noticed for myself
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: and even as I've taken other people out onto trails.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: You know, the Lord speaks to us each in our
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: own way. And one time we were on a trail
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: and a little bird was just like jumping ahead of us.
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: Every he didn't fly away right, he wanted to stay
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: like within that trail area, but he just kind of
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: jumped around. And I asked, asked the crew. I was like, Hey,
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: is anybody you know? Is that bird speaking to anybody?
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: Is there something something that you're getting out of this experience?
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: And and so several people were just like, Yeah, I
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: feel like, you know, the bird's not scared of us,
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: but it's not you know, it's also not like wanting
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: to be right next to us. So you know, I
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: feel like God connects things in our minds.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: Butterflies have done the same thing for many.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: People, and you know, just being able to get out
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: and witness and see the power of water, right, you know,
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: the erosion, the coolness, the refreshing, all the things that
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: water can be damaging, and yet we have to have
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: it for life, right, So it's it's a tremendous I
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: feel like God just gives us metaphors out in nature
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: all the time, right the people people write about the
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: sequoias and how they're interconnected and that's the only way
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: they can grow to their massive sizes. And yeah, all
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: the all the different biomes and things like that.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: That sounds like you've done a lot more research into
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: than I have.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: But it's occupational, very cool, Yeah, very cool.
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: I love I love it and experientially. Yeah, that's definitely
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: been my experience in taking people out and for my own.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Self well as a Christian. It also brings me nearer
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: to the heart of Christ. You know, he he when
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: he spoke many of his parables are related to nature
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: in some form or fashion. And and it's hard to
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: be out hiking, you know, if you've spent if you've
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: spent some time in scriptures, it's hard to be out
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: hiking and not see it mirrored, you know, like you
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: could you could hang out with Moses on a mountain,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: you know you can. You can see the mustard seed
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: tree that started from this tiny little thing, and then
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: you're like, oh, my gosh, faith is that way I
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: remember I spent I've We have a wonderful state park
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: relatively near to our house. It's this little gym. It's
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: so weird. The locals don't come here. I don't understand it.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: But there are people from all over the place that
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: come come here. You know, I meet more out of
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: state people than locals. But when I'm hiking, but I
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: hike there and I pray there often, and I remember
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: coming by this uh this waterfall over and over and
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: over again, and I was fixated on this tree. I
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: don't I didn't know why. I just I would sit there.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: I'd like consider it. And I'm not that guy. I'm
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: not no offense to the tree huggers out there, but
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: I'm not that guy. Like I'm not like, oh, this
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: is such a beautiful tree.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not that guy. But I'm fixing on this tree.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I couldn't figure out why.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: So I sat there and I followed it followed the
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: trunk down and it was rooted in a rock, and
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: for some reason for me, that just was such a
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: deep metaphor for being rooted in the things that last,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: that matter. And it was it was sitting on top
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: of a waterfall, so like it had had a hard life,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Like how do you grow in a rock at the
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: top of a waterfall. You're constantly being beaten, You're constantly
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: being being hit by the waves and the power of
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: this thing.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: It's not like you have soil around you know, but
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: here you are. And so it was. I spent a
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: lot of time praying at this tree.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: And that might sound weird to anybody who hasn't spent
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: much time in nature praying through difficult things. But God
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: really does I believe minister to our souls through through
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: the natural. So I wanted to ask, you know, fresh
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Journey started what five six years ago?
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fast forward to today. How are things going?
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: What kind of presence do you guys have in your
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: community and and how do you feel the missions progressing?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: So I I want to say I love the better
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: daily one percent kind of thing Like when the Lord
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: spoke to my heart to do this, it was like, well,
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: how many people am I going to make the difference
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: to you know, and I said, well, even if it's
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: one percent, even if it's one percent of the people
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: in my community that this makes a difference for, then
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: that's that's good for me. And I mean probably I've
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: hiked with thousands of people over the last few years,
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: because some will come once and some will you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: come for years. So in that season, so many of
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: those people who stayed with me throughout the pandemic than
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: the following years as we've you know, all come out
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: into a new a new season and figuring out what
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: it is we want to do with our lives. And
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: and a lot of the people had didn't done their
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: own healing and you know, walked through their journeys, and
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: now they wanted to offer something similar.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: To what what they got when they were walking with me.
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: So it's really cool that there's sprung up out of
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: out of this ministry. There's been another group called Soul Adventurers,
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: and they tend to take on more of the trail
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: running aspect and love spartan races and things like that.
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: I'm not that adventurous. I'm really afraid of like tearing
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: my a c L and being down for the rest
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: of my life.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: So so.
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: I'm good with just you know, one foot in front
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: of the other, not climbing over crazy things or mud.
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: And then there's another group that has more younger children
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: in their in their sphere, and so they've taken on
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: the Little Hikers of Bakersfield, and so it's a bunch
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: of moms who get together and their kids get out
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: and it's so wonderful to watch, so wonderful to watch
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: and just to kind of be the parent of these
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: different these different groups and just encouraging them to go
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: out and to you know, make it a safe place
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: where people can get out learn about nature, you know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: how to get out there safely, and to get their
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: families out there, and to encourage their friends to come
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: join them, you know, even if it's not for the
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: benefit of grieving or moving through something hard, right, just
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: to just to do something outdoors and you know all
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: the benefits of that walking and all those sciencey things.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: So there's been several several groups that have sprung up
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: out of this, and so in the last year it's
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: kind of like I feel like I've transitioned into where
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: there's groups here. Now people will find places that they
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: are able to connect and get outdoors if they wanted to,
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: whereas you know, pre pandemic, there wasn't a lot out
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: there and your options were very limited.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: And so that's really exciting.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: And so I feel like the Lord's kind of pulling
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: me back now into I'm very confident that I can
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: physically train people because I've done it for enough years
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: now and so I'm moving more into the actual grief
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: maybe science or coaching kind of realm. And so I
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: have written the curriculum called Hiking to Explore Grief, and
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: I've had my first book study group this summer going
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: through that, which is super fun. And I've partnered with
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: a ministry called Wildhaven Sanctuary and they're actually out in
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: North Carolina, and so there's a group out there. It's
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: been online and so we've had people from the East Coast,
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: from the Central and out here with me in Bakersfield.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: And so next weekend we're taking our celebration hike that
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: we've been training for in our grief process and understanding
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: what are those trail markers of things that you would
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: be looking for in grief to kind of show that
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: you're moving on to the next season.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: You walked through that section.
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: And so kind of going through that, and then the
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: book is in the process of being published or workbook
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: more is what it's more than a book, it's more
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: of a workbook.
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and gives a lot of practices because
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: you really have to do this experientially, right, And most
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: of us aren't taught how to grief, right.
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: That's not something our culture embraces or that we're taught
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: even in the church, even though there's so much grief
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: in life, and so we haven't been taught that well,
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: and we don't know what to expect. And once you
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: kind of learned that process, hard as it is to accept, right,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: then when new waves come, you kind of have the
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: you have the faith that it's going to You're going
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: to move through this, okay. And that's you know, as
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: the seasons of life continue to sometimes overwhelm and send
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: the title wave, you know, you understand, Yes there's devastation,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: that's no more. Now where are we going to go through?
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: And how are we going to.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: Get through this?
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: And and so for my own self, that's been you know,
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: part of the journey is that I've had to deal
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: with so many title waves.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, you know, I oftentimes so my wife's a dietician, okay,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: and I, uh, twenty years ago, I became a personal
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: trainer and I've been working through the health coaching process
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: and all that, and so so my children live with
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: a master level trainer and a registered dietician.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: And so I tell them a lot. In our line
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: of work.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: You're learning this intensely practical stuff that most people don't
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: know how to do. But you get to just take
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: it for granted that every single day. You know how
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: to get enough protein, you know how to exercise, you
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: you know what these benefits are, and you know that
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: if you don't, you're.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Gonna pay for it. You know, like all those things.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: And understanding grief and how to move through that is
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: very similar, because it's not like I pray that nobody
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: has to grieve every day, but it is inevitable, just
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: like having to eat is inevitable.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: It is inevitable that.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: You will wrestle with grief in your life. And and
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: if you don't know how, it's gonna shellack you. And
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: if you do know how, it'll probably still shellack you,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: but at least you'll know what's happening.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: How to water, Yeah, yeah, right, How to tread water.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's well said. And so I'm just so
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: grateful for what you're doing in the world. Bless you
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: for that. I had to I had a thought that
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: I wanted to.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: To share because grief is like, uh, grief is this
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: thing that if you don't know how to handle it,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: or you've never been through it yourself, or you have
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: been through it, but you're not dealing with it.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: You're like, it's there, but it's not there, you.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Know what I'm saying, Like you're breaking the breaking down
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: to the grocery store a lot.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not laughing at you.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: That really stinks, but but you know, it's just a
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: regular thing you're life.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: You haven't worked through it, it's just there.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: If our world generally likes to take something that difficult,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: even in the church and turn the other way, like
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: act like it's not there, I don't want it to
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: be there, and that's not biblical. There's a the Apostle
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Paul says, we do not grieve as the rest of
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: the world grieves. That doesn't mean we don't grieve. That
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: means that we have a hope as Christians. We have
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: a hope in the faith that we can we can
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: grieve with that. This is this thing that makes it
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: a powerful and good process, even though it's painful. But
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: what I love about my faith as a Christian, what
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: I love about the Christian faith is at the center
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: of everything. It's right behind me on the right there,
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: at the center of everything is this symbol of grief
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: and difficulty. It also becomes a symbol of redemption. But
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: the symbol of the cross is grief and difficulty. Every year,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: if you celebrate Good Friday and Easter, you get like, like, hey,
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: here's here's an innocent man, beaten, bruised and tortured for
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: the sins of the whole world. His friends have abandoned him,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: he's been wrongfully accused, He's done nothing but help everybody
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: around him. And there he is bleeding to death and
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: dying on a cross right and look at it, like
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: and and grief is kind of like that greet Like
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: if you're going to wrestle through grief, can't You can't
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: do it by saying I'm not grieving, it's not affecting me.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Everything's fine, and I'm okay.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Nah.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: It's like, hey, I am going to go for a
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: hike because I'm not okay, And I'm going to go
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: face this in in a way that that honors it,
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: in a way that that doesn't try to shy away
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: from it. And I'm gonna I'm gonna journal about it.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna write about the things that are hard to say.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: I'm going to write about the things that are difficult
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: to even think and feel right and and well, what
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: I love about what you're approaching here and what you're
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: you're doing in your world as you're saying, Hey, it's okay,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: it's okay to be grieving, but we're not going to
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: not do anything about it. We're gonna we're gonna come
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: together and we're gonna walk through the difficulty. And I'm
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: sure I don't know if you have a guarantee with
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: your hikes, but it's like, hey, you will survive this,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: like you'll be okay, We'll make sure you make it.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: We do, Yes, we do.
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: And even in pointing to the cross, right, the prediction
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: was that this was a man of sorrows, a man
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: who would understand. And I'm pretty sure it's in Hebrews
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: where it says he's experienced the grief of our life.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: He knows what it's like.
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: And so my favorite image of the Lord is the Immanuel.
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: He is with us and as he left, they said,
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: he promised, I will be with you. And so it's
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: it's lovely that even you know, through all the trials
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: of life, he is with us. And a lot of times,
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: without these trials, we wouldn't turn to him, right, we
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: would think we have life on our on our own.
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: And so yeah, that's that's equally an experience that you know,
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: my family's had to walk through. And you know, my
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: husband really in some of our challenges, he's.
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: Like, I need Jesus. Now I need him.
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: And you know, before you could kind of handle you
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: life on your own, but now life is different.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: And you know, and so that's.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: It's a tool in the Lord Minister's through it, right,
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: not that he causes it or that anything like that,
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: but we know that he's with us, and he is good,
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: and it's good to be with him.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: And would that we turned to him without having to
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: experience pain and difficulty. But but glory to him that
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: in pain and difficulty he's there. Yes, yes, and and
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: I I my papa. So it's my wife's grandfather. So
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: he's a second Baptist preacher. He he actually he passed
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: three years ago, and I remember him telling me one
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: time over breakfast. He said that he never ministered better
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: than when he was doing a funeral. So like he
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: would go to a funeral and he would speak, you know,
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: the eulogy, he would he would take time to minister
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: to the family and stuff. But he said that he
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: always made sure, as weird as it might sound, that
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: there was an alter call in the funeral because because
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: his what he said is that our hearts are never
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: more raw and open to God in our life than
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: in the moments when we understand we're not going to
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: be okay by ourselves. And even the hardest heart, if
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: you lose somebody that you love, even the hardest heart,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: is like, where's God right now?
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Like I need him?
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: And and you know, there if if if God did
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: not intervene, if God did not love, if he didn't care,
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: if he didn't if he didn't step into that, then
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: we would just be lost and alone in that situation,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: which is so wonderful that He's faithful to do that
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: even if we were hard hearted prior so so at
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Papa's funeral, I remember saying I remember saying, Papa would
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: come down from heaven and slap me in the face
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: if I did not give an alter call.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: And he wasn't that kind of guy, but laugh.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: And and three people came to Christ and that that,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: and I'm not much of a preacher myself, but but
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: three people came to Christ because of what he taught
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: me and told me at that time, because he meant
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: something to somebody enough that that without him, there was
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: there was somebody in the room that was like, I
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: don't know how I'm going to get through this man's
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: loss without God in my life. So, uh So, anyway,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: thank you for the ministry that you do. I'd like
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: to transition and talk a bit more about one of
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: the one of the tenets of what you're working with,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: and that's an acronym called CORE.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Can you walk us through that. I liked your acronym
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: for fresh. That was cool.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: It was a yeah, I had to write it down freedom, rest, encouragement,
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: and healing, soul healing.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, but what is CORE? What what does that have
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: to do with fresh journey? Yeah.
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: So there is a great counselor in the Christian world
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: named Leslie Vernick and I've spent years under her coaching
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: and ministry in she deals with a lot of spiritual
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: abuse situations and times when maybe churches don't recognize a
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: lot of women suffering in their marriages, and.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: So she offers a lot of tools.
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: And so I've kind of combined what I've learned with
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: revelation wellness and the you know, the core strength ability
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: of our bodies physically and how important that is to
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: keeping us upright and you know, our intestines even working
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: right and things like that.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: That our core is super important.
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: And so leslie Verneck's teaching of core the sea is
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: completely honest, completely honest with yourself, with God.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: And with others. And so they may this may not
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: be word for what she teaches, but this is how I've.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Maybe can come on and argue with right.
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm like, maybe that's not exactly what she says.
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: But a lot of times as I'm doing a core
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: workout or leading some some groups in some core strength
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: even on the trail, we try to find our core
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: and and do stuff like that when the trail is boring.
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: So a lot of that I'll be talking about, you know,
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: this is this is how we do in life is
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: being completely honest with ourselves, God and others. And I
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: use the journal as part of that teaching that a
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: lot of in my own experience, I was a very
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: shut down emotionally person when I started every every group
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: that I had to start going to for my own
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: my own healing. You know, I didn't know how to feel.
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: I didn't know that I was allowed to feel. I
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: didn't know any of these things and was just kind
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: of a hollow shell of a person, it felt like.
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: And so being completely honest with myself kind of had
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: to be like the first trauma almost you know, as
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: I wrote down this, this really happened. You know, this
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: really happened, and I have to accept that as part
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: of my story and be completely honest with myself and
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: then I can take it to God, right because I
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: can't even ask for healing if I don't know what
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: I'm asking for healing for from. And so you know,
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: being completely honest with myself taking it to the Lord
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: and then being able to bring it into community and
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: to recognize, you know, a lot of times we feel
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: so alone when we've been through something hard, and yet
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: once we start sharing, we realize, oh my gosh, all
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: these people have been through this too.
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: You know, there's nothing wrong with them.
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: Why, you know, because we have a lot of self
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: talk that there's something wrong with us, that's why this
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: happened to us. And then we find out this is
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: a more common occurrence than we would have ever believed.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: And so.
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: That see is the beginning steps of taking taking into
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: developing that core strength that's going to get you through life,
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: just like your own core, Okay, and then the o
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: is open to the Holy Spirit and other people who
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: are wiser than you. So that's where your counselors, your pastors,
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: and then you know, just good friends that maybe have
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: walked through hard things or are willing to walk with you.
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: And that's another thing to grieve sometimes in these hard
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: things that you know, sometimes you lose friends. Sometimes you know,
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: they don't agree with what's happened in your life, or
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: they want to argue, or you know, even in the
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: case of spiritual abuse, right they're they're like trying, they're
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: trying to wrestle their own emotions about this.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: Situation or this person.
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: And so we lose some people in our in our walks,
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: and so trying to find that community trying to really
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: anchor into the Lord.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: And you know, he promised he would send us a counselor.
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: And more times I've seen and experienced enough people really
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: anchoring into the Lord to find you know, they're like,
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: oh my gosh, he really is the counselor. He will
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: help me, you will guide me in. My sister walked
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: through a season and she explained, she explained to me
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: how the Lord was giving her the shield of faith
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: to stop the fiery darts, you know, and I was
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: just like, so good, so good, And then the next
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: one is ore. And that's responsible for your own self,
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: your own behaviors. And again the journaling prompt does a
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: lot for this core strength ability in being able to
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: be personally responsible, which is one of my like the
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: things that that's really anchored deep in my soul is
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: that I'm I'm only responsible for myself, right, I'm not
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: responsible for the outcomes. I'm responsible to be faithful and
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: to to do my own work, and then the Lord
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: will have to do his work in other people in
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: his time and at their pace, right, and that's not
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: my pace really, it's never fast enough, right. And so
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: being responsible for yourself and looking into what it is.
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: As you're journaling, you know, what is it you want
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: to do? And is that really what you want to do?
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: And you know, make a prayer.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: And to decide what it is.
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like I could do this, but maybe
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: that's not the direction I want to go. I want
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: to go this way and to be able to take
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: responsibility for a lot of that and then but not
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: the outcome, right, that's God's and E is empathetic, and
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: I think as Christians this is where we get to
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: apply the Gospel. So empathy does not mean I'm going
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: to enable someone else's bad behavior, but I can understand
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: that they're acting out their bad behavior based on their
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: own feelings, emotions, experiences in life. It's not necessarily a
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: reflection on me. Right, But I can apply the Gospel
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: and say, hey, you know what they need Jesus in this,
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: and I can share if i'm if I'm inspired by
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: the Lord to share, Hey, you know what I've been
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: through a season that's been really hard, and you know
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: the Lord has met me there and if you're willing,
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: he will meet you too.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: So you know a lot of times it's do you
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: do you want the Lord to meet you?
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: In this walk and so empathy in understanding right, but
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: it doesn't mean we're going to enable bad behavior. And
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: that's Leslie Vernock. A lot of her her ministry is
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: in that empathy, real fine line right, empathy versus enabling,
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: and especially with marriages that are real controlling and things.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: Like that that.
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: She talks about leaving well or staying well. So how
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: do you do that as a wife in a in
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: a devastating kind of situation? And so in my own
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: in my own marriage, it was I was called to
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: stay well. And so in having to walk through that
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: journey learning how to stay well, this little three little
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: circles that my counselor drew was how I got through it,
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: you know. And so I've kind of adopted that into
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: the fresh journey and how to help other people to
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: get through that in that caring for your body, your mind,
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: and your spirit every day and moving through that.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: You know, because as adults, we've got lots of things
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: to do.
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not like we can just sit down and
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: heal all day, you know, So how is it gonna happen.
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: It's gonna happen in a fifteen minute workout.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: It's going to happen in reading your Bible or listening
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: to it like I do on my drive to work.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: You know, like, how are you going to do that?
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: You're going to have to be intentional and you have
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: to I call it practices, you know, you just simply
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: have to practice right and in doing so, every day
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: it builds. You know, there's that staircase, little drawing, you know,
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: and usually the guys way up there and you're like,
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: how am I going to get there?
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: We'll make the steps smaller, you know.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: So one percent every day?
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, day love it.
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: So yeah, we don't we don't have that benefit of
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: all that time, but we we have to do the work.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: We're responsible for it to get better and to move
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: in that direction, and the Lord will meet us as.
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: We do it.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: So core is is uh wait wait almost had it.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: It's honesty, complete honesty. There we go, okay, honesty, openness,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: and then we have responsibility and empathy and those those
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: are all reflected in you said you sent me a
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: link that I'll make sure is in the Showdows. Those
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: those tenants are reflected throughout that journal entry.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, awesome.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: So so I'm I'm going to invite the listeners right now,
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: if what what Jennifer just said resonates with you and
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: you're like, hey, I need to move forward in this,
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: you can start with this journaling prompt the links in
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: the show notes.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: You need to grab that and get started on it.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to tie up a conversation in just
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: a second, but I'm gonna.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: Pray over you.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: But I also want to do a quick, kind of
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: fun lightning round of kind of random questions, but not
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: really random, like I thought of them ahead of time,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: so they're not that random. Although although my brain's a
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: little strange.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: So I got to know.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: You're hiking on this trail with a bunch of strangers.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're not strangers by the end of it, probably,
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: which is great. But if you hike on the trail
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: a bunch of strangers and you want a snack, what's
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: your favorite trail snack, Jennifer, I love an apple, perfect,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: very portable, no must, no fuss, And you can throw
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: the core back back into the woods.
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: Right, But we don't leave a trace.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: We don't leave, so you don't throw your core. You
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: keep your core. Yes, Oh okay, well.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: Pack it in, pack it out.
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah. The animals will We'll find that and become more
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: accustomed to.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Our dependent Okay, well, here in Arkansas, the animals will
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: find it and then they'll probably be lunch.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: But come hunting season, I don't know how it is
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: where you are, Okay, noted? Okay, So Apple love it now.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: I love worship music when I hike by myself, specifically,
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: if I'm gonna hike with somebody else, that's.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Usually a conversation.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: But but if you go for a hike by yourself,
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: are you listening to music?
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: And if so, what kind of music do you like?
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: So I typically don't listen to music when I hike.
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: I listen to music out on my daily.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: Walks, things like that.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I.
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: Am They is one of my favorite bands.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're good. They're good. Cool.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: So, So, if somebody wanted to start a hiking group
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: and they've heard what you said, and they maybe they've
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: wrestled through their own grief, or maybe they are currently
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: wrestling through their their own grief, you've learned a thing
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: or two putting together hiking groups.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: What would you recommend to them?
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: It sounds like you wrote a workbook that would be
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: really helpful to them When it when it comes out.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: What would you recommend to them?
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: I would recommend in looking around for a hiking group
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: that is in your area already. That way, if you're
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: not familiar with the outdoors, you know, it is good
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: to have people who've been out there a time or
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: two to kind of help you out and teach you.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: You know, some of the natural wildlife that your area has.
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: You know, I wouldn't know a copperhead from a from
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: a cotton mouth, you know, so I wouldn't be very
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: good on your trails.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: But but I do.
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: Know what a rattlesnake looks like versus a king snake,
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: and things like that.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: So having somebody.
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: To to kind of walk with you through just trail
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: safety things like that, and then who are more familiar
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: with with your area and and the challenges that each
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: each area comes with, so and finding people, and a
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: lot of times you can connect with somebody in those
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: So I I often say look on Facebook or there's
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: an app called meet up, and there's a lot of
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: times people will have hiking groups in there, and that
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: at least gets you a little connected into that hiking world.
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: And then maybe there will be somebody that would want
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: to join up with you more more frequently, or that
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: you really connect with and feel like you can go
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: on the trail safely with, which is what I love.
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: And then yeah, if you're if you're feeling called to
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: start a hiking group, I'll help you. So that is Yeah,
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: that's part of what I love is just getting people
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: together and being able to find that camaraderie and take
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: a journey together. And you know, sometimes you got to
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: backtrack and find find the way together, but that's all
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: all the more part of the story.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: It so. So you're hiking and you come across a
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: cold waterfall. Do you get in it?
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's so funny. That's a rule, Like, that's a
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: rule in my own head. I come across the call,
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: I have to get it.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: I can't not. It doesn't matter what the temperature is.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: I just got to go. Yeah.
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: I did the Camino Santiago last summer, okay, and there's
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: quite a few places where the trail is and I'm
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: just like, every time at lunch, if there's a creek there,
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: I'm going to put my feet in.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: I got to get in. Okay.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Well, I didn't know if we could be friends, but
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: now now we can be friends. Sweet Well, Jennifer, I
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: sincerely appreciate this conversation. I know there's a lot more
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: that could be said about grief. We might have to
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: have you back as you publish your book and whatnot
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: so that we can talk through some more. But I
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: really love to close this conversation by praying over you
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: and your ministry and those listening who are wrestling with grief.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: If you would join me, sure, Father, God, thank you
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: so much for this day. Thank you for the opportunity
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: to spend time with my sister Jennifer, and for the
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: ministry that you've led her in through her own very
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: pain full road. Lord that you met her, that you
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: brought healing and grace, and thank you for the way
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: that she's pouring that out to others, planting seeds that
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: are turning into other groups who are connecting families or
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: taking on adventurous, high energy, acl risking challenges. And thank
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: you Lord that you've called her to an area that
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: many people need and want. So Lord, I just pray
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: for those who are listening and watching who have wrestled
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: with grief. God, I pray that you'll meet them in
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: that grief and that You'll You'll bring healing to their
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: heart and their life so that not only can they
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: serve others, but that they can be close to you
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: and find joy in you again. And I also pray
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: for those who haven't wrestled through their grief, either they
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: haven't had the event yet or or are avoiding it. Lord,
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: I just pray that that you help them to be honest,
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: help them to be honest with you, help them be
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: honest with themselves. Lord, and I pray that you'll give
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: a hunger to them right now to find healing, to
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: pursue that to be willing to step out, to get
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: out in the woods and spend time with you and
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: just open their heart and being honest with themselves and
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: with the pain that they're wrestling with. Lord, and I
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: pray that your redemption and your healing come quickly for them.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: In Jesus' name a minute.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for the time to day, Miss Jennifer,
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: I sincerely appreciate it. And to our listeners, you guys
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: know how I'm going to end this. This has been
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: coach Alex Van Houghten on the Faithful Fitness Podcast. Until
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: next time, train hard, but pray harder.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Hey, if this episode helped you, jare it with someone
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: who needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe
• 53:42
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• 53:45
  Speaker 1: find faithful fitness. Oh and my dad's new devotional is
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: almost out now. You can grab a copy for yourself
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: and then join our free community at Better Daily by
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: clicking on moning in the show notes below. We all
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: have a cross to carry, but it's lighter when we
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: do it together, so check out both links in the
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: show notes. Don't be a big well bob, just do
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: it until next time. Don't forget. Train hard and pray
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: even harder.