Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / Can Christians Do Yoga? With Michelle Tornetta

Transcript

Can Christians Do Yoga? With Michelle Tornetta · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, faithful, Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast. In a moment,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: my dad, coach Alex Van Houghton, will help you honor
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: God by making the most out of the body God's
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: given you. Today. You can expect truth from the Bible,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: tools from science, being guidance for everyday life. So listen closing,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: get ready, Let's get one percent better today.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Hey there, coach Alex here, grace and peace to you.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: A lot of us were taught maybe not directly, but
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: somewhere along the way that discipleship mostly happens in our heads.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Read your Bible, think the right thoughts, believe the right things,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: and listen. Those things really matter. But God gave us
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: bodies too, And in this conversation with Michelle Tornetta, we're
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: really going to talk about that. It's about joy, movement, play,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: and presence. It's about learning to stop treating your body
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: like a problem to fix or a machine to control,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: and to start seeing it as part of the life
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: God actually wants to walk with you through. Michelle shares
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: some really beautiful things in this episode about raising a
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: daughter with special needs, about grief, caregiving, exhaustion, and also
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: some really sweet ways that God meets us through movement, worship, creativity,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and even play. And honestly, I think a lot of
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: us adults have forgotten how to play. We get busy,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: we get responsible, we get productive, and we don't always
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: feel alive. If I didn't have a seven and ten
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: year old in my house, I promise.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I'd be really bad at playing.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Jesus told us that unless we become like little children,
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: we won't enter the Kingdom of heaven. Kids move freely,
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: they laugh, and they dance around without ever wondering if
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: they look stupid, And somewhere along the way, a lot
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: of us have lost that. So as you listen, I
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: want you to ask yourself, when was the last time
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: that I actually enjoyed being alive and the body God's
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: given me? Not optimized it, not punished it, not picked
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: it apart, just enjoyed it. Because stewardship isn't just discipline,
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: its gratitude, it's joy. It's learning to walk with God
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: again as a whole person. And before we jump in,
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: it's not too late to get your Mother's Day special
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: for Faithful Fitness Premium this week, give that special mom
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: in your life a year inside Faithful Fitness supporting her health, strength,
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: and stewardship.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I know you bilate gifts sometimes I have too. I
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: believe in this so much that my mom, my wife Kristen,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: and both of my sisters who are also moms, get
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: this from me every year. So if there's a woman
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: in your life who pours herself out for everyone else,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: this would be a really meaningful way to pour back
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: into her. You can find the link in the show notes.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: All right, without further ado, let's dive into my conversation
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: with Michelle Tournetta. What's some guys coach? Always been out
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: in here on the Faithful Fitness Podcast. We help you
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: make the most out of the body God's given you.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And I have a new friend that I can't wait
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: to spend some time with today.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Michelle. How are you doing today, girl?
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: Hi? I am doing well. Despite their heavy rain outside, I'm.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Doing well here in Arkansas.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I went from seventy degrees to like twenty seven overnight.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: So ours is hivvy wind, not heavy rain. But we're
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: gonna make it.
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll live to spring.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: That's right. That's right.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: So we have a lot to talk about today, Michelle.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to get into it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: With you.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: We're going to be talking about yoga for Christians. That'll
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: be an interesting conversation. We're going to talk about parenting
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: children with this abilities. We're going to talk about how
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: God uses movement in our lives to deepen our faith.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: But before I get into all that, I just I
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: just want to dive right in, if that's all right,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I'd like to ask for many Christians, they're taught that
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: their spiritual life happens in their head during some sort
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: of quiet time.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: But you and I don't really believe that.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: We believe that God can also move in us through
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the movement of our body. And I'd like to ask
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: for you, what do you mean by that when you're
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: talking about that in your podcast or when you're talking
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: about your work. How does God move through movement?
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Well, I just my whole ministry, my whole life is
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: really based around that connection of the body, mind and
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: the spirit. And I think I in my early days
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: as a Christian, although I did like to exercise that,
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: I never connected them. I was compartmentalizing all of that
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: like my quiet time. Then I'll do my exercise, you know,
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: taking care of all the pieces well now in my
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: life through many different circumstances. I guess it is so
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: connected that I can't separate it. And I also want
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: to say that for me, one of the early practices
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: that I never realized involved in my body, not just
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: my brain, was the practice of journaling, which for me
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: is really important part of my faith, and it actually
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: involves your whole brain because when you're writing, like your
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: brain's involved, and I feel like that's one way that
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: we can involve our body that's not just you know,
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: physical exercise or jumping up it down. Another way is
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: just I call it praying in color. Well, it's actually
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: based on this by Sybil Macbeth, and it's doodle praying.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: And so for me, that's really opened up another pathway
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: for me to commune with God. But personally, like in
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: I don't I don't know how many years it's been now,
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: but probably the at least ten years I experience probably fifteen.
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: I experience God the best when my body is moving
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: and so, like I might go to church and be
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: part of corporate worship, which is great, but if I'm
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: at home and I'm like jumping on my trampoline or
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: I'm doing a walk, I call it my worship walk
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: or worship jump. I feel the spirit of God so
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: so tangibly. So for me it's become like, you know,
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: I have my morning quiet time, but that has become
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: a staple for my spiritual life for me and God
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: to commune. I love to meet Him on the water
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: paddle boarding. Oh, like, I just that's where I feel God.
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: That's where I hear God. That's where you know, the
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: hairs stand up on your arms, which doesn't always mean
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: you're with God, but for me, it's like a tangible presence.
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: Or I could just be like throwing up my arms
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: and all these different postures of prayer when I'm moving
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: my body. I just I feel God's pleasure and I
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: feel God's presence.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: That's so well said, and it's so interesting how if
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: you actually dig into scripture and you start looking for
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: that sort of thing, you'll notice how the heroes of
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the faith experience God as well as thinking of There's
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: this such a strange passage right after Elijah faces the
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: prophets of Bale on Mount Carmel and God reigns fire
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: from heaven and basically shows shows everybody that he's he
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: is the Lord God. Everybody else are they're idols, but
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: he's the Lord. He's there, right, And it's a weird verse.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: It's a very strange verse because it says that Elijah
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: ties his robe around himself and takes off down the
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: mountain and beats King Ahab back to the city because
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: King Ahab's going to tell Jazubeh about about what happens. Right,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And if you actually look it up, it's like a
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: marathon like Elijah like Girds's lines and throws down a
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: marathon like right in the middle, in the middle of
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: the showdown. Man, it's so crazy. And we often overlook
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: that in scripture, you know, because we're looking for for
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: deep spiritual truths, which are there. Obviously, we are thinking
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: along the lines of, you know, studiously understanding the Hebrew
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: part of this word, or the Greek.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: In this word, or whatnot.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: But but the movement of the physical body is a
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: constant topic throughout scripture. Very easy to overlook, but a yeah,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: constant topic. So you're you're not alone among the heroes
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: of the faith who felt God's presence deeply in movement.
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and taking those postures of prayer like you know,
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: Daniel kneeling and just like laying prostate prostrate before God.
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: You know, this is so many beautiful postures of prayer
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: and worship that to just you know, sit with God
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: in my chair all quite is lovely. But there are
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: so much more that we can do. Yeah, and when
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: we leave our body out of the equation, I just
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: feel like we're the ones that are missing out. Jesus,
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: Jesus had a body. You know that the Gnostics thought
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: that Jesus didn't even have footprints in the sand. But
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: I mean he had indigestion. He was a you know,
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: was a body, and that makes our bodies good, That
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: makes them even more important that God took on that
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: form of a body.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Well said, and I'm glad you brought up the Gnostics.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: You know, we live in a Gnostic age. And what
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: I mean by that for the listeners who aren't quite
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: sure what that means, it means that that many people
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: think of their mind and their body, or their spirit
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: and their.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Body as separate entities.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: You know, like this is a bone bag that I
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: in dwell until I'm part of the earth, and then
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: my spirit gets to float on to heaven.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: And that's well.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: In the early Church, that was actually a heresy to
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: believe those two separate things, because there's a lot of
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: strange theological things that follow from that, like Jesus not
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: having a body or footprints.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Right, and in one.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Of the things we seek to do here in faithful
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: fitness is help people understand that that God made you
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: both of those things. A soul God breathing life into dust.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: A soul is spirit and dust together. You are a
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: very special thing that God made and you're not two
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: separate parts. You're one big whole part that all works together.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: And can worship God together or walk down a very
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: terrible road of sin together. You can. You can do
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: those things, but it's together. It's not just up here,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: and it's not just down here. So I'm curious, Michelle.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: You said you've been walking with God for over forty years,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: and I imagine there have been some highs and lows
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: in that. When did when did your exercise practice become
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: a part of your faith?
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: I've been like very My husband was asking me this
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: last night, like when did you first get into this
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: whole wellness and fitness thing? And I had this flashback
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: to my early well When I was nineteen, I went
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: on the mission field and then I also was working
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: at a church right after that, and I remember the
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: you probably don't even know it, it's going to be
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: my people in my sixties are going to know Stormy
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: Omardian and her book Better God's Way to Better Health
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: or something like that. And it's this little book that
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: really like touched me and informed me just about taking
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: care of myself. And I had to hang out in
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: the health food stores. I started teaching her workout videos,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: not unlike Elisa Keaton or even I know Beth Moore
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: started this way like in her teaching these aerobic classes
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: to Christian music, which in the eighties was a you know,
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: that was a big thing.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Wasn't a lot of.
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: Christian music, So that that is what I first did.
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: And I was so into the fact that I could
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: find faith in Christian music with moving my body. So
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: it started in the eighties pretty early on in my
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: in my walk with God, and it probably blossomed most
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: when I did my yoga faith teacher training, which I
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: resisted yoga for a long time, not really for the
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: Christian reasons that we may talk about in a bit,
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: but actually just because I thought it looked really boring
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: and I am a mover, and it just looked like
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: I'd be like on this StairMaster at the gym and
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: the pilates and yoga people behind me, and they're just
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: sitting there and they're laying there, and I was like,
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: what is happening? Like that does not my thing.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: It's not a workout.
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: Oh, that's not a workout. And my sister started teaching
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: yoga and I'm like, no, no, I'll just do a
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: little poladies and so I can stretch, but it's not
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: my thing. But like, I gotta move, I gotta I
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: gotta like work harder. And so I resisted that for
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: a long time. But when I did take my two
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: Underdour Yoga Faith Trainer, and I was very certain that
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: I did not want to do any kind of yoga
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: training that wasn't faith based. I didn't know that, and
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: I can't remember if before that I'd ever I have
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: maybe been in a yoga studio once once or twice.
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: Don't care for it. I teach in a community center.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: I love the community center vibe. I have a certain
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: niche is more my age or just certain. I don't know.
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of women, a lot of women who
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: were it maybe forties and up I have some young girls,
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: but that would be my niche.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: Am careful about going into studios. So I believe when
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: I I guess, I'm going to get into the yoga thing,
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: because when I get, when I teach, I always bring
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: the spirit of God with me. And the opportunities that
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: I have had to be a witness in a secular
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: community center gym when I used to work at a
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: y Now I mean give you a center one. Oh
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: my goodness, it's like a whole mission field. And because
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: yoga does mean yoke, and this is what I feel
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: like is left out of all the conversations. So I'm
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: glad I get to talk about it. And Alisa Keaton,
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: by the way, her podcast on this on her revelation
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: while on this podcast is the best I've ever heard,
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: so she she just really like lays it out beautifully.
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: And of course Michelle Feelen has a book called Stretch
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: Your Faith, which she is the leader of Yoga Faith,
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: So they both do a great job of explaining. But
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: for me, like to be able to bring in a
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: spiritual element into a gym, now I couldn't do that
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: like I do teach water aerobics. I kind of actually
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: do do that there as well.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you how.
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: But the in that what we call yoga, and call
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: it what you want, stretching your body, whatever you want
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: to call it, But that word means to unite. I
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: believe we can unite to whatever we want. And I
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: unite myself with the spirit of God. And when I teach,
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: I get this honor and privilege of opening up this
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: space for women to notice what's happening in their body,
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: but I also bring it into their Sometimes I say spirit,
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: but I also say, like, what's happening inside of you?
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: Quiet her thoughts and notice, like press your hands on
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: your heart. And then when they lay in the resting
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: pasture at the end, I'm literally praying over them and
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: I have the most amazing conversations afterwards home. I'm just
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: going to be one of them. It's because it's the
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: most powerful one. I was teaching why and I had
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: a young woman who came all the time, and she
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: she and I got to be friends. And when I
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: would just kind of be walking the room at the end,
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: like I was really drawn to her and I would
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: really be praying for her. And one day she told me,
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: she said, because she heard me talking about church with somebody,
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: and she said, I was going to be a pastor,
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: but I no longer believe that, and I no longer
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: go to church. And I said, what happened? And she
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: said she was a Bible college and she heard somebody
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: teaching about manipulating the crowd. And she's like, so I've
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: been manipulated all my life then by pastors and speakers,
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: so I'm out. Well, during this time when I was
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: her teacher, she told me, then I literally felt the
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: spirit of God prompting me to come back and to
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: seek Him and to know Him and for me. When
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: I first did start yoga, I went for that last
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: five minutes of rest because as a mom of the
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: child of special needs, and I was going through a
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: painful divorce at that time, I was experiencing anxiety. I
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: that was my only time to be in my body
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: to hear God, to feel his presence. I felt his
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: presence every single time, So I never had that weird
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: like ooh, something is entering in and trying to yoke
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: with me.
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: No.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: I felt the spirit of God in the quiet, in
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: those postures of surrender.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, said, and you know, the interesting thing about
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: yoga in my experience is that it's a very mindful
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: movement practice. I could argue the same thing about weight training.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I love weight training, and when you're very mindful about it,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: it can be extremely meditative and whatnot. But we are
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: deeply influenced by what's spoken in those very mindful moments,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: right in the same way that we're deeply influenced when
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: let's say a parent says something it's to their child,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: or a husband and wife are having a conversation. Words matter,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Words have power in that context, but there's no special
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: power because it's yoga. It's just mindfulness movement practice. I
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: was thinking as you were talking about how I love
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: to coach my boys' sports. So I'm coaching boys soccer
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: right now. I can't say I'm a great soccer player,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: but it's first and second grade. We're teaching like the
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: fundamentals of like respects and sportsmanship and hard work, you know,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: and then a little higher tier my son's fifth and
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: sixth grade basket ball team. Things are getting a little
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: more serious, so I'm an assistant coach, but even then
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: still teaching the boys how to notice when they have
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: have done something that that they could do better at
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: and practice outside of the game, or helping the boys
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: notice when they've done something amazing and to build on
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: that right and and to you know, keep your keep
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: your head about you and all that sort of stuff
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: when you're losing all that stuff. But you can take
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: sports and make an idol out of them, Like there
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: are some of those poor kids that soccers their life.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Basketball is their life, you know, and and they're in
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: the game. There's nothing particularly New agey or Buddhist about basketball,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: but man, it can become somebody's religion, right And in
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: the same way when we look at our exercise and
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: movement practice, I think it's a testament to how deeply
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: powerful those things can be in.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Us that they are.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: They are spiritual things, and there's an there's a spiritual
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: vacuum if somebody isn't bringing God with them into it.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think that's so wonderful.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I have so many friends who are excellent yoga instructors.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: They do a great job of bringing intention and light
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: into spaces that, you know, whether it's cancer patients who
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: can barely move, or whether it's women who are wrestling
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: in abusive situations, there's such a such a deep need
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: for what are us Cardio bunnies might have looked at
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: and said.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Hey, that's that's not a workout. What are you guys doing.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: It's like, I don't know.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm just kind of moving slowly and meditatively deciding
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: what to do with myself because mindfulness is really important
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: to me right now, there's a deep need for that.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: Sorry, the same thing can happen just on a meditative
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: walk or with your worship music on. Like I've been
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: known to start singing loudly in the neighborhood. I'm sorry
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: to my neighbors because I don't sing well. But it's
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: the act of moving, whether it be the way training,
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: the yoga, the walking, whatever it is. I think the
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: reason that that provides such a great opportunity to meet
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: with God is because God created our bodies. And when
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: we leave him out of the equation and our bodies
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: and we just try to meet with Him with our mind,
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: and it's it's not the full experience.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Not quite, not quite.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like running on broadband right right. You got
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: fiber optic internet one hundred gigabytes per second, or you
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: got broadband twelve megabits. Man, it's going to be a
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: very slow download, but when you're moving, it's way more.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: There's way more happening, lots more can can download and
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: upload for sure.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: That's yeah. Please.
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: And then I do want to say one other thing
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: about yoga that I feel it's going to throw it
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: out there, but this is a really powerful book. It's
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: called Embodied Prayer. Her name is, it's called Harmonizing Body
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: and Soul. Soe Less Snowburschroeder. Do you know it?
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: I didn't. I never meet anybody who knows this book.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: It's not a very well known book, but I found
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: it very powerful.
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And this quote is one of my favorites where
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: she talks about what happens when we cut off our bodies.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: So when we become cut off from our bodies, we
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: so easily can become cut off from that part of
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: us that is fire and passion that gives room for
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: the wild spirit of God. And the word wild by definition,
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: is the act of living or growing in its original
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: natural states. So we need to come back to that
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: part of us that feels like home or to discover
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: it for the first time, to be free to live
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: in the uniqueness for which we are made. And may
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: we have the courage to pay attention to the fire
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: of God breathing and moving through us, allowing our bodies
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: to bring us through the geography of our inner life,
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: and there we meet our truest selves and our wild God.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Don't you love That's awesome?
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: I love that so much.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Well. Bringing it down to me from a biological and
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: scientific perspective, we call it adulting. I get to work
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: a lot with children and children's monastery, and the wonderful
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: thing about working with children is they remind you what
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: childlike faith looks like. That's different from childish faith, but
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: they remind you what child like faith looks like. And
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: when we grow, obviously we're not children anymore. We grow,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: we grow these things called frontal lobes in our brain.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: And frontal lobes are very good at problem solving, at
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: executing long term visions, at thinking through big decisions right,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: But they're also very very good at distracting us from
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: our internal process and in our internal systems. And one
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: of the things that I love about working with kids
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: dancing around or playing some sort of crazy game like
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: kickball or something is our adulting mechanism where we have
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: to pay the bills and work our job and take
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: care of the people who God.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Has entrusted us with wisdom.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Right we also have an opportunity to not necessarily shut
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that down, but to focus that more inward on the
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: experience of right now. I think of that as innocence.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: As you were reading that passage, I was thinking about
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: innocence our wild God, meaning the original form where things
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: came from. That's in many ways, movement brings us back
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: to some of the innocence of childhood that we often
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: forget in adulthood.
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like twirling around and jumping on the trampoline, Like
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: I feel so free. I'm not much of a dancer,
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: but I mean David danced, and I like just moving
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: my body free for all, and you know, trying to dance.
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: But we also forget like celebration is a discipline, a
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: discipline of God, and like a prayer is, and celebration
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: involves moving your book body, throwing up your hands, twirling around. Play.
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: I think play it needs to come back for Christians.
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: They need to play, they need to twirl, they need
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: to like be more free in their expression.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, there's a deep element of joy in that.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Joy. Joy is a huge word to me.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I want to I want to switch gears
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: a little bit and talk about I think it actually
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: continues this this movement theme. The passage from Psalms twenty
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: three came to me. Yay, though, I walk through the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: value that you don't sit there, You don't sit in
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the valley of the shadow death.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: You just keep walking.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: You know, you got to get you got to get
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: through there. There's there is a deeply difficult element of
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: exercise when when things are are hard, whether you're going
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: through some sort of health issue, but for yourself, I
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: think being a parent of a child with special needs
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: is one of the most difficult underspoken things in our
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: societ today. There's probably a few others, but I think
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: it's one of the most difficult underspoken things. And one
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: of the reasons I'm really passionate about this. There's a
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: family in our community. Their son survived a glioblastoma, which
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: is he was three years old when he was diagnosed
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: with it, and it kills ninety nine point something percent
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: of children that have this state of cancer, and he survived.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: It's actually a wonderful miracle. He's thirteen years old, and
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: it left its mark. It was brutal on his mind
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: and his body. And I love him, he's a great kid.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: At the same time, I know that his parents have
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: really struggled with this. I think of it as a miracle,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: as do they, But they've struggled through the last ten years,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the last decade of stewarting this miracle. Well, it's not easy.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: You know, he's going to need their help for the
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: rest of his life. Right, And so that said, I'd
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: love to hear from you because because you're full of joy,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: you've been walking with God, but you also have this
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to call it a burden, this deep
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: responsibility to steward in your life where you are caring
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: for your special needs child. So can you tell me
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: about what it's been like to walk with God in
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: that and how He strengthened your faith in that process.
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: Yes, well, it's probably been one of the most national
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: things in my life, transformational, and it's formed me who
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: I am. My daughter's name is Abby, which actually means
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: source of joy, and she had we had had a
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: very long labor and when she was first born, there
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: was like a lot of confusion, low Apgar score. We
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: did still, we kept her there a couple of days.
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: We took her home. I think she was about two
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: to three days, and at day five she was just
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: exhibiting a lot of sctoms, like just screaming, really projectile vomiting. Anyway,
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: we took her to the er. All kinds of diagnosis
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: were quickly come out, but it took us a while
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: to find out that she had had a bleed on
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: her brain, so a stroke that we were told later
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: as discoveries were made that it's kind of genetic and
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: it could have happened when she was twelve playing baseball,
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: could have just happened, and therefore she wouldn't not have survived.
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: So because she had the soft spot on the top
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: of her head, the blood and the fluid could form,
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: and I, being a new mom, didn't know that it's
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: supposed to be concave, but hers was like this, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: so I didn't know that at day two or three
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: what was happening, And so she did have a stroke.
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: She was in intensive care. She was in the hospital
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: total of twelve days, but intensive care for the first part.
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: And the doctor told us she's not going to be
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: able to speak probably or walk or talk and all
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: these scary, scary things. And while I'm you know, just
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: trying to feed her, but she has no sucking mechanism,
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: and it is really really traumatic, Like to be honest,
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: I don't really remember the first six months of her life,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: just huge trauma. As a new mom she is now
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: my only child, was like, I can't do that again.
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: And she as she started having seizures at I think
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: around age one or two. She also had to have
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: a hip harness, a lot of things like that. But okay,
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: let's fast forward. She is a miracle. She is thirty
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: years old as of this year, and she she does
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: have speech impairment, so a lot of people can't understand her,
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: but she chatters NonStop to me, and I mostly understand her.
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: So now we're coming from like doing speech therapy when
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: she's young and all those things to like, oh, I
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: just pray she can speak to now. Sometimes I'm like
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: I say it, and so I feel bad when I
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: should sure, because like I need some quiet. And then
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: but she you know, she could see fine. She doesn't
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: mean glasses. She sees every little speca thing on the floor,
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: and she has been such a joy and has her
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: own like ministry to people of joy brain and of comfort.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: Sometimes people will tell me I want to sit by
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: abbey at church because I'm sad, and that just this
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: thing that she has. And one time at church, and
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: she would never usually do this, she just got out
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: of her seat and walked up to this man and
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: hugged him. He was playing the violin. And after she
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: hugged him, and we're I'm like, she never does that,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: Like she doesn't know this man. I don't know what
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: it was. We found out that he was he and
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: his wife had been sirs of the Holocaust and he
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: had lost his wife and he was so so lonely
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: and sad, and she just felt from the Holy Spirit
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: to give him that hug. So she has this powerful,
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: powerful way of blessing people they cannot be described. And
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: me as well, and the people I know in the
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: people in her life. She has so many friends. And
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: so while I wouldn't change a thing, because I have
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: friends who are going through really hard things with their
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: thirty year olds right bad, you know, relationship issues. I
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: don't have that. I didn'tough to deal with the drugs
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: issues or that, But here we are now. I had
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: just read another article from a friend of mine who
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: has a daughter somewhat the same age. Well, when your
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: child is young, you have this and they have a disability,
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: and they have medical issues like seizures that can happen
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: anytime you have you're just pretty much living day to
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: day and you're in the moment and you're surviving and
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: people are trying to help. But there's this waves of
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: grief that happen when you're a caregiver and when U
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: realize what could have been or should have been, even
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: though you wouldn't change a thing. I remember this hitting
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: me one day on that church and I'm just thinking, okay,
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: intellectually or celebrating milestones, we should be celebrating this right now,
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: but we're still at an intellectual maybe emotional level of
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: a three year old or four year old, and then
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: this wave of grief just comes on me. And in
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: her adult years, I mean, my husband and I cannot
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: really take trips. We can't take trips unless we take
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: her with her, or occasionally her dad might take her,
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: but then she often has seizures. So it's just a
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: whole thing. It's a whole thing that causes grief. That
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: is hard. It's really hard, and I won't lie to
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: you about that. There's a whole other area of grief.
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: And because now you realize this is for life, and
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: this is one of the reasons I am passionate about
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: fitness now. I need to stay strong. That's why I
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: don't necessarily like weight training, Alex, but I started doing
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: it because I have to keep my bone strong, take
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: to take care of my daughter and to be there
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: for her as long as I can. So when they're adults,
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: there's this realization that, yeah, this was for life. I
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: don't get to do My friends now are all taking
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: these trips and they're empty nesters and I'm still doing
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: bathroom routines, bedtime routines, waking up, giving her a shower,
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: washing her hair, feeding her. That's forever. So I don't
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: usually resent that or anything, but but it is hard,
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: and there's some grief that enters into my life on
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: and office because of that.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Mmmmm hm, well said, thank you, thank you for sharing that.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: I had one more question about stewardship and caring for yourself,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: but I did just I wanted to mention this thing,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: you know, Jesus. Jesus is in the garden of the
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Guessemite and he's kneeling on the ground. He's asked his
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: friends to pray with him, and they fall asleep.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: They're no help.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: But he's on the ground and he's preparing for death
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: on a cross like he knows it's coming.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: He knows what's coming.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: And he bends down and he says, Lord, if there's
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: any way take this cup from me. In the cup,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: it's it's a metaphor. He's going to drink the cup
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: of a brutal and traumatic death. But the cup comes
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: to represent something of the nature of Lord. Your will
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: is good. I'm willing to do that. But this isn't
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: going to be easy. There's nothing there's nothing fun about this,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: you know, like, this is not going to be easy.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: And the scripture tells us that Jesus endured the cross
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: for the joy set before him. It's interesting that your
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: daughter's name means something along the line. Yeah. Yeah, But
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: every Christian, regardless of whether you're a caregiver for a
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: disabled child or or an ailing parent, or not even
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: a caregiver at all, every.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Christian has a cup. I believe.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: I believe every Christian has a cup. There's a thing
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: that God says, this is my will for you. It's good,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: but you're not gonna like it. And that's what he says.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: He says, if it's it, take this cup from me.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Yet not my will, but yours be done. And it
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: says that he struggled to the point of sweating drops
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: of blood because it was such a hard thing. And
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: none of us are being to go to the cross
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: and bear the sins of the world and be separated
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: from God. Jesus did that, but God does ask us
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: to bear hard things. And one of the things I
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: love about walking with Christ is he doesn't pull any
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: punches in that arena.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: He says, this isn't going to be easy. Yeah, so
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: buckle up.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Doesn't mean there won't be joy, doesn't mean there won't
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: be healing and redemption. It doesn't mean it won't be good,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: but this won't be easy.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: So thank you for.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Being real about what your struggles have been in that department.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: And unless you have something to add to that, I
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: just wanted to ask, how do you how do you
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: prioritize taking care of yourself when you're in this caregiver role?
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Because you know, I have listeners here who might be
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: in a caregiver role just like you. There might be
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: listeners here who might be caregiving you know, family members
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: or moms and dads that sort of thing. But also
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: moms and dads with young children are in a caregiver
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: role too. And often it feels like you're pouring yourself
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: out constantly for good reason.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: For good reason, you're.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Pouring yourself out constantly, and that it's selfish to take
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: care of you. It feels selfish to make sure you
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: get enough sleep and eat and that you get a break,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: and that you exercise and those things right, well, not selfish,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: And so I want to ask you, how do you
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: prioritize that, How do you take care of yourself in
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: that way? And what realizations or revelations have you come
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: to with God about what it means to take care
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: of Michelle well being there for Abby.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because I do have a lot of friends who
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: are caretaking well their children, because I have a lot
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: of special needs families for connected with them, also neighbors
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: who are taking care of their husbands, and I see
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: the struggles really happen. I just reiterate that is an
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: hon her and a privilege and a joy to parent
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: my daughter, that's for sure, and I know God chose
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: me for it. And as I think about certain particular things,
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: where the fact that I love to exercise and move
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: my body, I don't find it difficult. And I know
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: some people do. Like it's like you get if you're
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: a caregivern. You get some free time and that's not
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: your thing. Like you may not, it's gonna be a
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: lot harder for you than is for me. I take
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: my daughter with me to all of it, so that's
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: probably why I work also at a community center. I
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: take her with me. Now sometimes she chooses not to
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: do it and she sits there and watches. That's her
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: been her thing. Lately, she's in this stage, but she
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: wants to go for a walk every day, so we
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: walk every day. She's just has taken up jumping on
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: the trampoline a little bit, so she's pretty active girl.
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: So I'm I'm blessed in that. But I remember when
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: she was little, I had to get very creative. So
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: I would put in the playpen and I put on
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: a workout video and then she was safe. And she
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: is like her little head sticking up me so she's
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: been watching me exercise since she was little. But for
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: the person though, who doesn't necessarily love to exercise, and
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: like they might not even be able to leave the
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: house and go for a walk, I say to first,
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: what I'm really learning right now is ask God for
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: the opportunity and the desire. So there's been something specifically
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: lately I'm praying for it with Abby's health that are
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: challenging for me, that caused me probably the most stress,
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: and I'm seeing him answer it now. I have randomly
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: prayed for those things before, but now I'm intentionally praying
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: for them and I'm seeing them happen. And also, like
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: I say, ask God for creativity. So I alluded to
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: before that idea of playing and just putting on some
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: music and dancing. And maybe you're your person that you
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: care for is in a wheelchair, turn them around and
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: oh my gosh, they love to move too. Everyone loves
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: to move in a playful way. So how can you
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: move in a way that actually does feel fun to you?
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: Sometimes you got to ask God for creative ways. Me
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: finding a rebounder for the house when I can't get
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: out because we live in rainy Seattle area, It's been
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: a life changer because for five minutes, I can just
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: jump and play and twirl and feel like I'm free
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: and outside, even though I can't go out, or I
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: can't get out because Abby's not feeling well or whatever.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: So you had to ask God for creativity, I think,
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: and desire, and he'll show you really fun ways to move.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: I think that's a great step. I think that's a
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: great step.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: And that actually brings me to a conversation I wanted
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: to have about your podcast. So, unlike many of the
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: people that I've had on my podcast, you actually have
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: your own podcast. Many many, many individuals I've brought onto
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: the show our pastors or fitness instructors or authors, and well,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: they're happy to come on a podcast, but they've never
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: produced one, or planned one, or published one, right, which
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: is its own thing. Yes, yeah, So while I was
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: getting to know you and your your profile online, I
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: found your podcast, The Simple Steps Podcast, and then I
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: saw that your last episode aired I think the twenty
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: fifth of February or something like that, and I was like, hey,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: you know, we're shutting this down, but you can still
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: access all seventy five of these and so I wanted
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: to ask, one, how did you get into podcasting and
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: decide that was something you needed to do? And then two,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: what was the process by which you sought God and said, hey,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: we need to close the doors on this one.
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: Oh my goodness, so funny stories. I actually have two
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: podcasts and my first one is called Deep Breath with
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: Lexia and Michelle. The reason we called it Deep Breath
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: is just kind of that breath prayer and that well,
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: it started during COVID and so my friend and I
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: were LEXI were like, what can we do to give
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: hope to people in this time? And we both liked
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: to talk, and so we're like, well, maybe we could
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: do like a vlog or like something like we didn't
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: even know what, you know, we listened to podcasts, but
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: that's about all we knew, and we're like, let's try
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: a podcast. So I'm like youtubing how to do a podcast,
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: like the equipment to the program, which I've changed different
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: times when I use I'm, you know, using Spotify at first,
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: and I'm not a technical person and so it was
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: a real like kind of humorous thing, to be honest,
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: Lots of mistakes and in the beginning we podcasted in
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: a closet because we were trying to get the best sound,
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: and then we had to podcast separately because of COVID.
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: She's one end and I'm one end, and there were
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: programs that did that very easily, and her voice would
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: be great, mind would and and that podcast is all
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: about spiritual practices and you still can find it out
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: there if you just if you just google Deep Breath,
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: you're gonna find weird things you have to put with
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: Lexi and Michelle. Okay, So then we stopped that podcast.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: A very traumatic event happened in my friend Lexi's life,
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: so we stopped that one, and there was a little
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: bit of time in between, and I had had another
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: revelation wellness health health coach Lisa. She lives right down
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: the street. We've been taking walks, we talk fitness, we
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: talk health, we talk revelation wellness stuff, and she had
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: been on the other podcast talking about that kind of stuff,
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: and I was like, hey, do you want I in
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: fact kept Deep Breath going for a while with Lisa
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: doing a couple episodes with me. We stopped that one
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: and we started a new one that was more in
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: line with you know, faith and fitness and and things
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: that health coaches like to talk about, like eating protein
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: and drinking your water.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: And school practice.
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, simple steps, and we were using that whole atomic
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: habits kind of idea, like just take your small step,
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: and so I think we did. We did that for
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: a while. If you said seventy five episodes or something
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: that almost two years. We both started to get really busy,
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: and it started to because we did it. We were pretty,
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: we weren't pretty. We were extremely religious about our weekly episodes,
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: and we did try to keep them short. We would
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: take a break at Christmas. But it is a lot y,
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: as you know, it takes a lot more than just
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: opening up a mic, and there's promotional stuff and we
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: just decided to table it. Now I do a few
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: random ones with another health coach friend of mine and
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: we might start something again. So I don't know, like
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: I like it because it's a great platform to reach people,
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: but that's how it happened. It's fun.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I love that, one of the things I love about podcasts.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: We put this out on YouTube, but we also have
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: our podcast channel and as a dad, slash business owner,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: slash just guy who has a lot going on, it's
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: so nice to be driving from one place to another,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: or mowing the lawn or building a chicken coop with
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: the capacity for listening in on conversations that move me forward.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: You know, that teach me things I wouldn't know otherwise.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: I believe God teaches me a lot of things through
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: individuals who are having great discussions.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: When I would have conversations with clients, this was I
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: started podcasting maybe a decade ago. When I was having
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: conversations with clients, are like, man, I'm having this conversation
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: like ten times a week. Like if I could just
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: record it and I can be like, you know what,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: that's a great question, instead of me spending thirty minutes
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: with you right here, listen to this on the way home.
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: You know, great tool. I'm a big podcast listener and
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: I yesterday listened to Yours with Alisa Keaton. It was
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: really good. But I love podcasts because you can listen
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: to them just about anywhere on a walkall cooking. So
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: I think it's it's a great way also for us
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: as business owners to refer people to Hey, I've already
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: covered this topic. Here you go.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it's it's kind of multiplying the thing and
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: then making it making it accessible. You know, but my
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: dollar per hour cost is very high. So if people
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: want to go back through, yeah, I've probably talked about
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: it before. You can find hundreds of hours here, so
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: so you can you can reflect back on things before,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: decide how that needs to apply to you, and then
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: if you still need some help with that moving forward,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: that's where that's where paying for help makes sense, to
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: personalize things. So yeah, so outside of just getting really busy,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: was there was there any anything else that your mind
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: You're like, Okay, this needs to stop right now, or
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: is it just about just having so many things going
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: on right now?
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: We were both getting well. She was particularly getting busier
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: as a health coach, doing more health coaching and podcasting
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: doesn't pay anything, and she had a book out, so
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: we you know, we're using it too to feed that book.
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: And I have a kid's doodle journal, so you know,
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: it feeds some of your projects and it's fun. But
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: then there comes a point where you're like weighing, like,
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: best use of your time right priorities?
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Well you just brought it up and I wanted to
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: give you an opportunity to talk about where people can
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: find your stuff. But I was actually looking through what
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: you offer and the doodle journal thing was like, oh,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: that's cool.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: Can you tell me about that. I work with children
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: and children's.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Ministry, so like to an adult, the idea of doodling
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: and praying and stuff sounds childish, but it's actually very powerful.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us out what that is and how
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: it works?
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: Well, this is not my doodle journal. I should have
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: brought it in front of me, but you could link
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: to it. But generally, like you can pray for someone
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: using just really random doodles. That's a very elaborate one.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: But one of the reason I wrote the Honeycomb Doodle
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: Journal with Lexi and we did that was my first podcast, Buddy,
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: is because sometimes prayer is hard to stay with. So when,
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: like I said before, when you've got your pen and
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: you're engaging with it like it's still prayer, it's do
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: you think, oh, I'm coloring. No, you are actually holding
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: that person up in front of God and you're praying
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: about them. You're holding them up. And the doodle journal
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: is actually based on the lecto divina style of being
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: with scripture, so you are soaking in the verse, very
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: simple verse, and you're reading it like three to four times,
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: and then you're underlining and circling words that stand out
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: to you. Then you can make your own little doodle
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: in the middle, and there's a prayer at the end.
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: So really simple, doesn't take very long, but it helps
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: you memorize scripture, helps you chew on it, meditate, stay
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: in it, and it's just plain fun. What I like
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: most about the Honeycomb Doodle Journal is it doesn't matter
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: if you're an adult or a child. You could they
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: can both be doing it together, side by side, and
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: then you can share, like or a whole class homeschoolers
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: use it. You can then share, hey, look at my
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: doodle from this scripture, and it's just really fun.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: It's a very engaging thing.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Like must we have so many activities we do in
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: children's ministry. I mean, from building a human tower out
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: of children, which they really like. That's a good way
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: to teach mea maaya by the way, building a law.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: I'm teaching kids this Sunday, so.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: I need its perfect me my human wall.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: It's best if it's three two one, just trying to
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: get four on the bottom. We couldn't quite get there,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: and I was scared somebody's going to get hurt.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: But so you do all kinds of things.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: But one of the most powerful things that that we've
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: ever done has to do with just that making a
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: space for prayer.
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: It might think a first grader or second grader doesn't
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: go that deep. They go real deep, man, and they're
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: very open to God, like they're they're very open, very innocent.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: They let their prayers known to God very easily for them.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: But you make the space and like, hey, here's here's
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: something to write on, something to write with, and I
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: want you to to write or draw what you need
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: God's help with right now, or somebody in your life
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: that needs God to be close to them, or what
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: it looks like when God loves you, or something like that.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: Very very simple prompt, very scriptural idea as well. And
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: I got to say, like some of the biggest treasures
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: in children's ministry have been after they do all that,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: they're like, here you go. You know, they'll they'll put
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: it in a pile, they'll drop it on, they'll make
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: a paper plane out of it, whatever they're going to do,
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: you know, And you look at these things.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Like, oh right, what a let's just gift.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, And it came full circle for me.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Actually had a buddy of mine that I'm getting to
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: know better now, but three years ago I didn't know
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: this was his kid. Actually at the time, you know,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: parents bring their kids to children's ministry and then they
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: go to church, and I don't always get to shake
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: their hand and get to know them as well. But
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: his child wrote he had a picture and it said,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: pray for my daddy because he has to stop drinking.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: That's what it said.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: And this kid's like eight years old, you know, and
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: it's like a heart, but his dad's like tired, and
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: there's like steam coming off of his head. I guess
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: that's what I guess that's what a hangover looks like
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: to a kid.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: And then there's like a sun with light shining on him,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: and like in the Little Doodle, you know, in this
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: eight year old's doodle, he's actually asking God to shine
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: his light on the darkness of his father's life. Right,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: And so three years later I get to hear his
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: dad's testimony about how God got a hold of his
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: heart and he's put down drinking and he's moved on,
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: And I said, I got to pull them to sign
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: and say, hey, your son asked us to pray for
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: you once.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Can I show you that picture?
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: And like he was instantly like devastated in a joyful manner,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: you know. But children need the space and opportunity to
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: be able to connect with God in a way that
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: doesn't feel so adult. And I would say adults probably
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: need the same. But I'm so glad that you have that.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: I'm going to put a link in the show notes
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: for people to go check that out, especially if they're
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: leading their children in creative opportunities to connect with God
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: that well actually actually make the space for that sort
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: of thing.
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: It comes full circle too, the fact that kids do
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: that so easily, engage their bodies with their spirit and
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: what pours out, You're just like because they just they're pure,
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: they just let it flow out. So I love it.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: None of this frontal lobe problem, right right, which also
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: leads to some interesting decision making, but that's a topic
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: for another day. Yes, yes, Michelle, I'm so grateful for
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: this conversation. I believe that you and I could talk
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: for quite a while, but we're coming up on our
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: time here. So I wanted to give you an opportunity
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: to address listeners directly, and then I wanted to also
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: pray over you and your ministry and your family. So
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: if people don't hear anything else from you today, what
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: do you hope they take away from this conversation?
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: Oh? I think just hope that even if you are
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: a caregiver or you're finding it difficult to find your
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: way to move, that to return to an idea that
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: God can give you creativity and he can bring it
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: back to joy. He can make moving or just paying
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: attention to your body and its needs, he can bring
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: joy and playfulness back to that because He loves your
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: body and he wants to partner with you. Like I
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: didn't say that, it all did. But that's a huge
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: thing to me, is letting him partner with you. You're side
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: by side, working with your whole being, your body, mind,
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: your spirit, involve him in it. Yeah, he wants to
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: be there. He loves your body, he loves your mind,
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: he loves your spirit, he loves it all.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Thanks for that, Michelle, I appreciate you. Let's pray together
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: and close this thing down. Father God, thank you so much.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: For this day.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you for the opportunity to spend time with my
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: sister Michelle, and thank you for the goodness that you've
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: worked in her life and how you've drawn near to
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: her and walked with her through difficult things and also
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: joyful things. Lord, I pray that you will bless the
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: conversation and bless those who are listening. I pray that
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: you would redeem this adulting mentality that we can have.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we're grateful for your wisdom and leading.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: Us down difficult paths.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: We also need you to keep close to us and
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: show us how to have faith like a child. You
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: said that unless you have faith like one of these,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So God,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: restore joy, restore innocence, restore fun to this whole process
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: we called discipleship. And I pray Lord that you'll help
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: us to walk that narrow way. We love you in
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: Jesus' name, Amen, Humen. Michelle, thank you so much for
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: your time and your energy in this conversation. And to
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: our listeners, guys, this has been Coach Alex VN Houghton
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: on the Faithful Fitness Podcast. Until next time, train hard,
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: but pray harder.
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: What's up for this episode?
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Health?
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: Do you share it with someone who needs to hear it?
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: And don't forget to subscribe and need a review? Some
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: of our people can find Faithful Fitness. My dad's devotional
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: Faithful Fitness is available now, and you can join our
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: Faithful Fitness community by clicking the links in the show notes.
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: We all have a cross to carry, but it's lighter
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: we do it together. See how later Alligator, But until then,
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: train hard and pray even harder.