16. Somatic Healing, Parts Work & Experiencing God in Your Body

What if the parts of you you’ve been trying to fix are actually parts of you God wants to meet?

In this episode of God’s Got It, we’re diving into somatic healing, nervous system regulation, and parts work through a Christ-centered lens.

We talk about what it means to bring your whole humanity to God — not just your praise, gratitude, and “put together” self, but also your anger, grief, fear, confusion, and the parts of you that still feel wounded or unsafe.

Together, we explore how trauma, unmet needs, and old emotional patterns can live in the body, shaping the way we react in relationships, experience anxiety, self-sabotage, and disconnect from God. And we unpack how somatic work and parts work can become a doorway into deeper healing when God is placed at the center.

In this episode, we cover:

• What parts work is and how it connects to the body
• Why your body often tells the truth before your mind does
• How trauma and emotional imprints show up through sensation
• The difference between healing yourself as “god” vs. healing home to God
• How to notice, name, and get curious about triggered parts
• Why healing is not about amputating parts of yourself
• How to invite God into old wounds, memories, and emotional patterns
• The power of moving from belief in God to an embodied relationship with God

Scripture mentioned:

John 14:27 — “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you…”

This conversation is an invitation to stop fighting the tender places within you and begin letting God meet you there.

Join our free devotional community where we’re diving deeper into nervous system healing, embodiment, and coming home to God.

And if this episode moved you, please share it with a friend or post it to your stories and tag us. It helps this message reach the women who need it most.

Book mentioned: 

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to God's Got It, the podcast for women coming home to God.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

I'm Jen and I'm Molly, and we're just two girls walking with God, doing our best to trust the process.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Here we'll be talking all things faith, healing, and what it looks like to build a life in Christ as we navigate the messy middle of being human.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

This is a space for the raw and unfiltered conversations about seasons that test your trust, moments that stretch your faith, and stories that remind you, no matter what's unfolding, God's got it.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Hello, hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of God's Got It. Jennifer Moroni, what has God got going on for you right now?

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Oh, you know, I had a feeling you were gonna ask me that. And I was like, do I wanna say, yeah, honestly, um, today I'm kind of in an interesting space um with God. Um experiencing, I don't know if the right word is anger or confusion, but um, I had a dear friend of mine last week that um unexpectedly had a really serious medical concern. And um just as that's unfolding and navigating, I'm finding myself just in this space of like, what the heck? And last night when I was in my prayer practice after I had spoken to him on the phone, just a wave of like anger, like, why God? So I don't know if anger is the right word. I mean, and I know that um he wants me to bring all of that to him, but it's been a really long time since I've been in that head space. So it kind of was a little jarring to me. I feel better this morning, um, but still in this space of of questioning, right? And that's all a part of this journey that we're on is you know, how do you lean in and continue to praise um and and lean in and have that faith when you really are rocked and you're and you are angry and experiencing those, you know, those types of emotions. So that's where God's got me today. And we're just riding the wave of it.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

It's like it's one of those moments. I feel like it's so easy to, and you hear this all the time. It's so easy to be in praise with God, in relationship with God when everything is going good and you're watching miracles unfold, and there's so much beauty and abundance pouring into your life and the life of those around you. And it really is a testament and also a test of faith when we go through those moments where it's just like, this I this I don't understand, right? And I think that's a big piece of what God guides us through and into is we're not meant to understand everything, why things are the way they are, why they happen the way that they do. And at least in my life thus far, I never know until it's in hindsight of like why that thing happened, something that felt so big or so horrific, why it why it happened and why it had to unfold the way that it does. And I also think sometimes we don't get to know, like we don't get to find out.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I will and I will name that uh I think back when we did our um our testimony podcast, you know, my first experience with uh with someone passing away put me in that space of anger. So it's kind of actually beautiful now to see the growth because in that moment of my life, it completely shut me down of like, okay, no, like I'm not doing the God thing anymore. And now it's just more of a curiosity and it's a practicing of what I'm talking about all the time and bringing everything to God, not just like you said, all the good stuff, but also bringing so coming to him with the frustration, God, I don't understand, you know, why this is happening to a this friend of mine, this man of God, you know, he's 39 years old, and I'm just bringing all of that, which is growth for me. So it's it's also something to to celebrate, even in the midst of you know, the heavy emotions I'm experiencing for sure.

SPEAKER_05 4:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

It's so wild to see and contemplate the way God works through so many people in all stories, right? Like this thing that happened to your friend, it's not directly happening to you. And yet here it is inside of this conversation, causing you to go into a deepening in your relationship with God or your contemplation with God. And that's not to say that the things that happen to our friends don't directly affect us, of course they do, but then like for it to pour into this conversation and now even get my wheels turning about like really thinking about that how easy it can be to be in that relationship when everything is good. And I think that's all relationships in our lives, right? It's so easy to be in a friendship or in a partnership when everything is going good and we're getting everything we want, and it feels really sweet, and then how much harder it can be to hold on when things happen that we don't understand or that we can't easily explain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

So I didn't mean to bring heaviness to the start of the call, but I I know um and I think that our listeners also can appreciate the fact that both of us, like this podcast, is about being real and raw and and honest. And yeah, that's where I am in my walk today. And let that be encouragement, maybe, depending on what season you're in at the time that you're listening to this, that it isn't all roses and sunshine and butterflies and and beauty all the time. Sometimes you're really in the trenches and having to navigate and your emotions and like how you can allow that to deepen and not pull you away from your relationship with God, but really to double down and and and yeah, connect even deeper, which just brings me full circle to our conversation around why we spend so much time talking about the importance of connecting in with your body and how that directly impacts and correlates to your relationship and having that embodied relationship with God.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Yeah, that's what I was just gonna say. I'm like, of course, this is coming up today because what you're speaking to, I know automatically as human beings, we wanna be like, oh, I'm so sorry for br bringing the mood down on the podcast, right? But you're right, this is about the real embodied walk with God. And that doesn't always just look like, oh, praise him even when you're down, right? It's like, yeah, that's a beautiful thing to say and a beautiful concept to have. And then there is the reality of the human experience that's actually walking through what it looks like to contemplate and walk that walk in real life when things are going on that aren't so that aren't so easy. Like that right there is a testament to the embodiment that you have with your relationship with God, that it's not just this thing that we blindly say or blindly believe or blindly spew scripture around, right? It's taking all of that and practicing it and implementing it in a way that really is transforming the way that we get to um experience life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Absolutely. So what are we diving into today? What are we where's God got you, Molly? I guess we can start there before diving in any deeper. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_04 7:12

I'm good. I'm good. I am officially, as of yesterday, 12 weeks pregnant, and I feel like I am really turning a corner through the trenches of my first trimester. Man, I just keep like laughing at myself at how hard I have tried to gaslight myself through these last three months of just like, it's so good. I'm so blessed, I'm so grateful, everything is fine. When it really is, has been, and I'm sure will continue to be one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. And inside of that, I'm so grateful for how much time I have spent in somatics, which is what it is that we're going to be talking about today, and nervous system regulation and kind of that deepened connection inside of my body with God, because there have been so many moments throughout this journey of just feeling like so ill, and there's nothing you can do, there's nothing that satiates it, there's nothing that takes it, takes away the pain or the feelings or the uncertainty or even the fears that start to come up once you um get pregnant. And my relationship with God through embodiment work has been a pillar in these last three weeks. And I just keep thinking and contemplating how much is going to continue to be a pillar as like now I'm through what is meant, is said to be. We'll see what happens in my pregnancy, the brunt of the like illness and the exhaustion and all of that. But now I'm going to be moving into like much bigger body changes and my belly growing every single day. And I'm starting to feel some of that like ligament pain and stretching and just the fullness that's happening in my body that I have absolutely no control over, and how important it's going to be and continue to be through this process and then through the labor process to have that deep connection to the uncomfortable sensations in my body and being able to breathe through them and talk to God through those experiences.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah, that's beautiful. As you were sharing that, I was thinking about, you know, I used to do a lot of mindset and manifestation work and play in that world. I know you did as well. And I never want to downplay and say that the way we think isn't important because it is, but it's just a piece of the equation, right? And I heard that as you were sharing, like I'm telling myself, I'm fine, it's great, I'm blessed, but your body is feeling very much different than that. And there's this like dissonance. And it's just making me reflect again on how important the the embodiment and the nervous system work is because our body really is kind of that detector for us. Our body's gonna give us the real stuff. So even if I'm telling myself I'm safe, I'm connected, but my body is sending all the signals that it's not. Well, who's gonna win there? My body. My body's always going to go back to what is comfortable and seeking safety. So I can tell myself all day long I'm amazing, I'm fantastic, I'm a dime piece, or whatever I need to tell myself. I'm a millionaire. Yeah, I'm a millionaire, right? But my body knows how I feel when I log into my bank account or when I walk by a mirror and I'm like judge my body and make, oh, that looks weird. My body catalogs all of that and knows. And so, again, not to be a dead horse, but literally, this is why this part of this work is so, so important and we're so passionate about talking about it and bringing it into your awareness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

Because your mind can and will, and that'll be a big part of this conversation, lie to you. Right? Like I could lie to myself all day long through my first trimester. I'm so blessed, I feel so good, I'm so fine, I'm so not nauseous. But my body is not gonna lie. My body is always telling me the truth of how I'm actually feeling, and there's this disconnect that we have in our modern world between mind and body because we're trying to just mentor our our way through the world when meanwhile our body is constantly telling us the truth of the story that we're living. And so much of the story that our body is telling us is contracted experiences from the past that we've never let ourselves feel because we are trying to move solely from the mind, telling ourselves, like, it's good, I'm fine, I'm just gonna keep going, keep pushing, keep doing, keep chasing after those things that I think once I achieve them, I'll finally feel okay. Meanwhile, the entirety of the truth of the experience that's bubbling beneath that surface is sitting in the fabric of your body, in your cells, in your muscles, in your tissues. And this isn't just some like woo-woo way of saying that your trauma lives in your body. It is scientifically proven. And we have both, and we have held many a client in the reality of the truth of that experience, that there are memories stored inside of the cells of your body, the muscles of your body, that when you feel that tension in your shoulder and you take the time to breathe into that tension and you get silent enough to actually listen to that tension, it will tell you a story. It will show you a memory. It will come up with all of these times and experiences where you haven't allowed yourself to feel whatever the emotion is that's stuck there. And that um sensational experience inside of your body is directly connected to that emotion and your ability to allow yourself to safely feel it.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Absolutely. I I can reflect on so many experiences. I think I've shared on here before. I'm a I'm a body worker as well, so I do a lot of hands-on touch uh with my clients through stretching, and it is fascinating to me the amount of times that I will go to work on someone and I start working on a particular area of their body, and as I invite them into breathing deeper into that space, the the tears come right. They you can I can physically feel the body shift, but then also emotionally they have like a cathartic release and them just being like, Whoa, what happened there? What is that about? And it's because like this is science, guys. We are not here to give you all the fluff. That's why I get so frustrated when people will come at me about the kind of work I do, offering breath work and movement practices and saying, like, oh, that's new age or that's this. No, like Google it. Look at any kind of science article or research article that you can find online about how trauma impacts the body, the br the way the brain changes, like the structure, these things are real. Um, so it's just always so, yeah. The work is so fascinating to me how incredibly wise and intelligent the body system is and how it can respond to those things. Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_04 13:53

And I used to fear that a lot when I transitioned kind of away from more new age practices and the new age mentality. And I want to go there for a minute. I think the darkness that exists in the new age space is the mentality that I am going to heal myself to become my own God, right? You make yourself the center of everything. It's not the practices and the science and the reality of the nervous system and somatic healing that is dark and dangerous. It's the missing the mark of the center of that being healing home to God, right? So much of what is in the new age space, it's around this idea that you are God, that you've forgotten that you are God, and that if you heal hard enough, you will access this infinite level of power where you can just make whatever it is that you want to happen happen. And that's missing the mark on the reality of the peace and the surrender and the beauty that actually exists inside of the kingdom of God, where we get to have this direct, connected relationship where we know that he has it and he's in control and he's the thing moving through our vessel and moving us to inspiration and passion and the things that he'll have us create in this reality, right? And this is where parts work and somatic work gets to be so interesting because those parts and pieces and pains that we're talking about that in some places within the Christian space, it's like, nope, don't talk about that, don't look at that, that's demonic, you're going into darkness. These are actually just the wounds of our humanity that are keeping us disconnected from God, right? So we have to look at those wounds and feel those pains and allow those emotions to be released from our body to make the space for God, for the Holy Spirit to fill our bodies and to move us into that peace that we can live in direct connection to God. So I just wanted to go there for a moment because I know that some a lot of our listeners are probably coming from a bit of that new age space and bridging the gap into Christianity. But I think we also do have some people who are born and raised into the Christian space and might have that fear around diving into some of this healing work because it is just so easy for people to judge and shame and put this label over these things when in reality there's this like beautiful meeting in the middle. And the way that I look at it is like God is the one who designed the intelligence of our bodies. God is the one who designed this mechanism that now we have thankfully evolved to a place that we have terms and science and studies to explain the way that it works, to explain the way we can directly come home to ourselves through our bodies, through our nervous systems, through somatics, through parts work, to allow him to be the thing that fills our body and directs our mind and actually transforms us from the inside out, going from being this thing that we just believe in and obey because the Bible said, to this thing that we are actually fully experiencing in our day-to-day reality. So good.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

So you keep naming parts work. Do we want to just dive in and what is what is parts work?

SPEAKER_04 17:12

Yeah, absolutely. So last week we talked a lot about the nervous system. So if you haven't listened to that episode yet, I'd highly suggest going back and just kind of tuning into we're calling it nervous system flexibility and the the ability that you have to use your breath to connect to your body to feel these parts and pieces that now we're going to talk about a little bit earlier in this conversation. I named, I always use uh the pain in your right shoulder because that's something that I consistently deal with, right? I can like feel it in my body right now. Um but what parts work is, is following the sensations in your body. So maybe you hold tension in, like maybe you close down your eyes and you get really silent and you take some deep breaths, and the first thing you want to do is notice like, where are you holding sensation in your body? What's coming alive for you right now that you're slowing down enough to actually listen? And let's say that sensation shows up in your stomach, and you're like, I just feel this like deep contraction in my stomach. You can actually sit and breathe into that experience in the center of your body and begin to ask questions like, hey, what emotion is this? Like what I'm feeling this sensation, but what emotion is attached to this sensation? And maybe it's fear or frustration, sadness, grief. I mean, the list goes on and on, but once you find that emotion, you can continue to breathe into it and allow it to expand. And a brunt of this work is allowing yourself to just sit in that experience, right? So you're feeling grief and you're feeling grief and you're feeling grief and you're allowing it to expand. And then maybe, like you just named in your body work sessions, the tears start to come. And that right there gets to be enough because your body is so intelligent that it can just release through expression. However, we also have the ability to go a layer deeper and kind of speak to this part of your body and ask it, like, hey, where are you coming from? How old are you? Is there any memory or thought or feeling or belief about yourself that's attached to this emotion right now? And the beauty of the mind-body connection is that because your body is storing these memories in your system, you will often get a vision or a thought or an experience, and you're like, I don't know why that's coming up for me right now. And the reason it's coming up is because it's connected to that sensation that is coming up inside of your system.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Beautiful. Yeah, I I think the the key piece to hammer home there is that none of the behaviors that we're engaging in that are coming up and arising on a day-to-day basis are random. Right. Um and I the book that I love, so I'm gonna show it if you're watching. It's called No Bad Parts. It's by Richard Schwartz. We'll drop that in the show notes for you guys. Incredible read if you are wanting to learn more about internal family systems model. This is what we're talking about um parts work. Um, but often in my uh my sessions that I'm doing with clients, you know, we can give these these parts or identities names, right? Like the overachiever, the people pleaser, um, the manipulator, the comedian, right? Like think about just take a moment and just look at a typical day-to-day that unfolds with you and your interactions that you have with other people. And in that moment, you will meet all of your different parts. Like I said last week, we're a bunch of, I call them preschoolers, but we can determine what age they are running around inside of our body. And these are parts of us that have developed as a coping mechanism or strategy to handle a need that wasn't met when we were a kiddo. Right. So we have these core needs of love, safety being seen, being validated in our experiences, et cetera, et cetera. And I call it kind of this like it's like a triad here, right? We have a core need, it's either met or it's not met. And if it's not met, we create then this coping strategy to have that need met, but then it's not sustainable. And so then we get caught in that feedback loop of okay, like I um overachieving, for example. I wanna be, I wanna be, feel like I'm enough. And my parents maybe didn't give me that experience. And so then I go like, okay, I'm going to be enough and I'll go to school, and then I become this like, I'm gonna be getting all the A's and I'm gonna do the extracurriculars. I've now made myself this performer to be seen by everyone in my environment. But if you and if you have that particular part alive and active in your system, you can follow the thread of how that plays out for you, right? You can look in your life and how it's followed a pattern of constantly. Seeking out ways to feel like you are enough through your overachieving, if that makes sense. If you're loving this conversation and you've been wanting a deeper way to walk with God in the real, raw, and messy nature of your everyday life, we'd love to invite you to join us inside of Living Liberated, our faith-based devotional community built to help you navigate what it really looks like to give your life to God.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

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SPEAKER_04 22:57

You will never actually feel like enough by achieving as much as you can to try to cover up the pain of being made to feel like you were less than or not having that need met when you were a child, right? So these parts and pieces that develop inside of us, they are to try to satiate, but also protect us from actually going into the depth of pain that we are holding from having once or twice, five times, ten times in our lives, being made to feel like we are less than. And then another really intricate piece of this, um, something that I specifically do in my work with my clients, I call it kind of like a timeline therapy, is we'll go into a sensation or a feeling and it'll bring up an emotion which is usually connected to some sort of belief about myself. I'm will just keep going with like I'm not good enough, right? And oftentimes I will then bring them into a timeline meditation to see three, four, maybe even five memories, points in their lives where they were made to feel this way. And it's so interesting because it happens so quickly. Like you are so able to, once you just focus a little bit on the reality of that experience and the sensation that's happening inside of your body, go to parts and pieces and places and times in your life where something, and it can be something so simple. I want to speak to that as well. I think people often get confused about trauma and trauma living in your body as these huge things that happen, right? Sexual abuse or a car accident or losing a parent or cancer or something like that. But when I'm talking about these memories that I bring my clients back to, it's like being on the playground as a little girl and getting picked last to play softball, right? And in that moment, getting that feeling like, oh, I must not be enough. And then these tiny little things that can happen over time that continue to perpetuate and solidify that story and that belief and that identity inside of yourself that I am not enough. And the beauty of this work that we're talking about is that we can, through our minds and bodies, go back, see these parts and pieces, allow them to actually complete the experience of deeply feeling that emotion of not enoughness. And then this is the part that gets really cool when we bring God into it. I used to have my clients just have themselves come into it, right? Like bring an older version of yourself or a higher version of yourself in to give you what it is that you need. But we can take that a step further and actually invite them to invite the presence of God into that experience and show you the truth of how he sees you and the truth of your identity in him and allow his light and his love and his power to be the thing that comes in and really helps you to clear up and clean up these old beliefs and identities that came only from that wound of separation from him.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Absolutely. And just hammering in that comment you made about trauma. I think sometimes in this space, people will like big T trauma, little T trauma. I don't subscribe to any of that. I'm like, trauma is trauma. Trauma is how you going through an experience and how you experience it in your body, in your in your being. And if it, you know, if it was traumatic to you, then it's a tra then it's a traumatic experience. So removing those labels, I think sometimes I work with people and they're like, well, nothing really awful happened to me. And like you named, well, then as we get into the process, there will be these memories that come back of so-and-so didn't let me sit next to them on the school bus, or you know, someone commented on my outfit that I wore, and all of a sudden I didn't feel like it was okay for me to wear this. So just being aware that it's how your body experienced it. And and this is beyond mindset work. We cannot think our way through healing our nervous system. You know, these stories were created in our system. They left an emotional blueprint or imprint, and we're not gonna be able to outthink that, right? I mean, just think about how many times you've been like, I know I shouldn't do that. I I get that, that makes sense. Like, right intellectually, we know all the things. And then you sit and you're like, gosh, why do I still keep self-sabotaging? Why do I keep doing that thing that I know doesn't make sense? And that's because it's wired in your system. Yeah. And it's going to require a deeper level of work than just telling yourself, I'm the bum. Yeah, I'm okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:36

You know, I think one of the first things I ever learned about somatics, and it absolutely blew my mind. So I hope that maybe this gets to be a moment for everybody listening as well. When you get scared, when something scares you, it is not your mind telling your body I'm scared, and then making that sensation in your body, that like feeling in your gut and the like racing of your heart. It is your body reacting that sensation in your gut, that racing in your heart, sweaty palms, whatever it is, that then tells your mind I'm scared.

unknown 28:12

Right?

SPEAKER_04 28:13

Before I learned that, I don't think I had ever really thought about it before. Like I wasn't like, oh, I thought it was the other way around. But the fact that your body is the thing receiving the experience first and then triggering to your mind whatever truth it's decided about said experience. And the same goes with these imprints of trauma that we're talking about, right? So now 10, 15, 20 years down the line, you are in a experience, let's say, with a partner, and something that that partner does in some way is triggering in you an old belief or an old experience or an old imprint. And now you are not reacting to the reality of the present moment. These parts and pieces of you that have experienced these things over time are now reacting to that person from the past, only it feels like it's connected to the future. And that's how, not the future, the present. And that's how intelligent our minds and our bodies are, that they can have this experience of being triggered, right? And it's a past experience that's being triggered in the body, and immediately the mind and body can create an understanding or um yeah, an understanding of why you feel so warranted to feel the way that you feel in that moment because of what it is that your partner said or did or whatever's happening in the moment. And that's why this work, when you really dive into it and you really give it the time, it is so completely transformative because it will not only transform the parts and pieces of you from the past that feel hurt, it transforms the way that you experience your present because now you are less and less and less being triggered by the past in your present moment experiences and you're actually experiencing the present moment for what it is.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Absolutely. I think the to name here, kind of if we want to give steps when it comes down to doing parts work. And you've you've kind of named these, so I'm just gonna kind of put them up in a nice pretty bow. First, we're gonna notice, right? Like you said, through the sensation, like what part of me is showing up right now? Like if I'm fighting with my partner and I'm starting to recognize, like, I'm becoming like 16-year-old Jen who really felt like she always had to fight and yell and scream and raise her voice to be seen because that was how she felt safe, right? So being able to notice when a part is coming online, and that will take some practice because it's become so ingrained for us that you will fall right into I I'm just I'm going off on a tangent, but I can just, I can actually in my brain right now and in my body remember and recall moments that I have gotten into an argument with my partner, and I feel like me, current me gen, who likes to think I'm pretty evolved and like aware of myself, is like hovering up here and I'm watching myself interacting like and you're like, why am I doing it? Why am I doing why exactly you're just like here right now? Yeah. And I mean, and I I have gotten out, I mean, because I've been in this work so long, I am able to kind of like do a thought sound like, hey, and tell myself and in that moment be like, I am so sorry, I am not responding to you in the way that I desire to show up. Like, there's something inside of me that's being really triggered. So I need to put this on pause and come back. Um, that will take practice because you'll notice yourself just like falling into that so quickly. So, step one of parts work is really is being able to notice that. I would say the second part is naming it. What part is this? Like, this is my fearful part, um, this is my controlling part, this is my um, you know, my my people pleaser part, whatever, being able to name it and then getting curious, not out of a place of judgment, but what what are you trying to protect me from here? Right? Asking those questions. When did I first learn this? How old is this part, right? And then that you said, and the the newest part that now I think as we've moved more into this work and really involving God in the piece is inviting God into it, right? God, help me with this. Where are you in this scenario?

SPEAKER_04 32:23

Yeah, you know, can you help lighten this load? Can you take some of this from this? Or if you're having trouble finding that part and peace, right? God, can you show me where this is coming from and how you'd have me move through this, right? Getting into that like co-collaborative relationship with him. Um, I think something that really used to help me a lot in the beginning of this work. And it's something that you kind of have to get over the hump with the people around you. And of course, starting with the people that you actually feel the safest and most comfortable with. But there was a big period in my life where I started to recognize how triggered I was all the time. And I really had to be willing to stop in those moments, specifically, I'll say, with my husband, and be like, hey, I'm noticing I'm really triggered right now. I'm gonna step away for a minute, right? And actually exit that conversation, recognizing like I'm super activated in my system right now, and I know that this doesn't actually have to do with this present moment. It has to do with something that's coming up inside of me that gets to be looked at. And then I started looking as at those moments as gifts, like this is a doorway that I can walk through to learn something about myself so that I can become a better version of myself, so I can become better at relating, so I cannot get so upset and triggered by this, by something so small, right? And I would spend a lot of time kind of then just bringing myself back to that place, but in a place of solitude. So getting quiet with myself, taking myself somewhere quiet and being like, wow, like what was that feeling in my body? Can I bring that up again? And can I sit with that feeling? Like, what am I, what am I actually feeling right now? Exploring that and finding like what is that emotion? And maybe how does it need to move through my body? Do I need to shake? Do I need to sigh? Do I need to cry? And and allowing that experience to kind of naturally unfold and begin to show you, like, oh, this is actually connected to you being a little girl and your mom saying X, Y, and Z to you, and that's why this keeps coming up. And then can you be with that part and allow her to be present and allow her to express her emotions, right? Because I think the thing that so many of us have evolved and adapted to begin to do is suppress and suppress and suppress and suppress and simultaneously like validate ourselves, like just validate and validate and validate my triggers and my responses and the way that I react. And then we also deflect and project onto other people. When the beauty of these circumstances in our lives, like I just said, they're doors and opportunities to really give those parts and pieces of ourselves that we're talking about right now the space to fully feel those emotions and complete those processes so that they're not always becoming triggered and being the thing that are taking the reins of control of your relationships or conversations or whatever it is that's going on in your life.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Yes, and not allowing them to become the scapegoat, you know. So often, you know, you think about when you're interacting with people, and maybe I'm guilty, I've done this for sure, and I'm sure anyone listening, you can resonate where you're like, that's just who I am. I, you know, or like we're constantly, you know, blaming and saying, like, well, that happens because I grew up in this kind of environment. Yes, that can be true. And gosh, I'm so sorry that you had to experience those things. And we are adults now with an opportunity to choose, right? To either excavate, allow those things to move through our body so we can choose to live a different way and get ourselves out of a victim mindset, but into an empowered state of like, yes, these things happened to me, and now I have the choice to go in, meet these parts of myself, figure out these needs, these unmet needs. And what do I need to do to change the trajectory here? We all get the choice. And I think that's why I always say, like, only the brave really do this work because it is hard and it is uncomfortable to have to face off with how some of this stuff has been continuing to impact your life as you've become an adult by not choosing to feel it but push it down to avoid looking at it.

SPEAKER_04 36:31

I love that you brought that piece up about not becoming a victim to it because I think that that's something that you can often see in people who like do a lot of work, right? Is now they feel like they have kind of a crutch or a reason or a um, yeah, like a reason to explain away, like, oh, um, they might be really aware of themselves that they act in that certain way, but then brush it off on like, oh, it's because this happened to me when I was a little girl, right? And I had to be really careful actually in my own healing journey around that. And I think that's where bringing God into the center of this healing becomes so important because what we also have to introduce and make sure that we are practicing and implementing and integrating into our minds and our systems is the word of God and the truth of who God says you are and what is possible in Him, right? Because I come from a background of a significant amount of trauma. And I was one of those people who said, like, oh, nothing really bad has ever happened to me in my life. Like, I want to place that here because we touched on it earlier, that that's also a really powerful defense mechanism that our minds just make up of, like, oh, I had a good life, nothing bad happened, everything was totally fine, right? Um, and it turns out that my mind was actually suppressing from me a very significant sexual trauma from my childhood. And once I found that trauma and I started working with it, there was a period of time where I kind of just surrendered into like, oh, I'm always gonna be this way because this thing happened to me, right? This is the reason why I respond this way, this is the reason why I react this way, this is the reason why I'm depressed or I'm anxious or this and that, and kind of like letting it rest on that. And the thing that took my healing a step deeper was when I had an encounter with Christ and began to put him at the center and who he is and who he says we are in him, and really allowing that to infiltrate the possibility of what I knew I could experience in my reality so long as I was centering him, right? And and bringing in who he says you are, what he says is possible in your life. I wrote down some scriptures um that kind of speak to this, but one of them being, um, oh, I don't, no, I did. Uh, John 14, 27, my peace I give to you. That if we truly are allowing ourselves the spaciousness to not only excavate and understand these wounds, but allow God to take the place of those wounds of separation that we once experienced through our humanity. The beauty of what is possible is just like it absolutely blows my mind. The reality of the peace that we can actually live in, the reality of the magic that we can actually live in with God, the abundance, the wholeness, like and focusing our awareness on that and not just the hurt that's happened, but the power of what's possible when we allow him to meet us in that hurt.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

So good. And just I briefly named this on the last week's episode, but I want to bring it, it's worth naming again. Because when I was early in my journey, I was like, I just want these things gone. I don't want to be a people pleaser anymore. I don't, I don't want to be this overachiever. I don't, you know, I wanted to lob off, amputate those things, and just be rid of them. So I'd be so mad when they would come back around. Like, why can't I just get rid of this thing? And, you know, just naming that there are no amputations in this work. As long as we continue fighting against these parts, they are a part of you. And at one point in your story, that people pleaser came online because it was needed to keep you safe. So the goal of this work is not to just be like, I'm never gonna be anxious before anymore, or I'm no longer going to be a people pleaser or an overachiever. It's how can I bring them back into wholeness in my being and know that all of those elements have created who the person I am today? How can I create enough safety in my own system with God on board helping me to really find love and appreciation for all of those versions of myself because they have helped create this journey to where exactly I am standing right in this moment. And when I made that shift of like this isn't about getting rid of, it's about an appreciation and bringing them back home to me, that's when the magic happened. I think that's the powerful shift, and I just really, really wanted to name that. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Thank you for sharing that because yeah, I think it can be, and it's something that I still get caught into this day till to this day of like, oh, why does this still come up? Why do I still feel this way? And it's like because the things that happened to you happen to you, and the things that you have experienced, you have experienced, and there's no going back and erasing the reality of what you have gone through in your human experience, and none of us that's something that I have learned so deeply through devoting my life to this work, to doing this work with other people. None of us get out unscathed. It is the human experience to feel separate from God, to experience the wounds and the projections and what we pass along human to human from that place of separation, right? And learning that God doesn't expect us to show up in perfection, but that we can learn, and it's bringing me back to last week when we were talking about um your window of tolerance and nervous system flexibility, right? Because my window of tolerance for being able to now feel anxiety in my system, get triggered by something, feel it, express it, and then ask God to come into it, it's a completely different experience than three, four or five years ago when I was just reeling in that anxiety and allowing it to become the totality of who I was and letting it take over the entirety of my day, right? And now it's not that I am completely without that anxiety, but it doesn't expand across so much of my life because of this work and the ability to be with it and breathe with it, recognize it, understand it. As you were speaking about that, I was thinking about the ways that we learn, like our friends and our partners, right? Over time, you learn like what makes them tick, what pisses them off, what makes them happy, what they need in certain scenarios in their life, and you become that person's best friend and you show up in the ways that they need you to show up in those moments, not because you expect them to stop acting that way, but because you know, like, yeah, this is a thing that happens to this person. And because I love this person, I have these tools in my tool belt that I've learned that I can bring to this person to support them in this. And it's the same exact thing that we get to learn to do with ourselves. We learn all our parts and pieces, what makes them tick, what triggers them, what pisses them off, what spins them out. And then we bring God into the picture of that best friend to hold that loving support. And we get to hear his voice and his truth and his peace spoken over those parts and pieces. And of course, that brings that part and piece from a 90 down to maybe a 10 and levels them out and gives them that. Exhale that we're talking about experiencing through this work.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Yeah, I mean that that part right there just changed my entire experience. When I let myself off of the hook, because here's the thing, I was going in and doing all of this work, but when a part came up and was asking for my attention, I became became then riddled with anxiety and frustration and overwhelm because I was like, great, another thing for me to have to fix here. Great, cool. Now there's more healing to be done. There's more work to be being done. And I'm just, I'm really wanting to say this with my full chest here to anybody that's listening. Like, you don't have to do it alone. God will give you the choice to try to, but like there's a better way here. And I will tell you from my own personal experience, like heart to heart, in this moment, if you are someone who is like a hustler and an overachiever and you're like, I am going to figure this out, invite God in. Take the pressure off of your shoulders and see what can happen when you take yourself out of the I have to fix all of this. And just to kind of like pull everything together. The goal here is not for you to become someone else. That's not what we're saying. The goal here is for you to become a safe place for all of your parts to come together to be able to hear from God more clearly. And we do that through meeting God within our bodies, within these systems that He has gifted us, through breath, through movement, through stillness. Yeah, that's the work.

SPEAKER_04 45:50

That's the last piece that I kind of want to bring into this conversation is somatics doesn't only just give you the opportunity to go in and get comfortable in discomfort. It doesn't only give you the opportunity to go in and feel your pain and cry your tears and feel your grief and your fear and your frustration. All of that has to be done absolutely. But when you go in and you learn how to adequately do that, what you're doing is creating space in your system. And when you create space in your system and then you invite God in, you're like, yeah, I know what fear feels like. I know what pain feels like, I know what grief feels like. God, show me what your peace feels like. And then you get to feel his peace. God, show me what your joy feels like. Show me what your presence feels like. And this is what we're talking about when your belief in God goes from just a belief in something bigger than myself because I need a savior to an embodied experience of a relationship with the reality, the absolute, like positively no one can tell me otherwise reality of an experience of God inside of your system. And that is so deeply different. Like those two things are so different. And our prayer in the work that we're doing in the ministry on this podcast is to bridge that gap, to take God beyond a belief and into an embodied relationship where now you're not just like questioning God's existence and is it real and is it true? And can I believe it? And what's good and what's right and what's wrong? But you are now living in a day-to-day partnership with Him that is felt in the bones of your being that nobody nowhere can tell you nothing about because you have felt it in your system. It is a sensational experience.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Oh no, I love that. This was such a great conversation. And listen, if you're listening in, tuning in, and this is peaking your ears up, making them be like, whoo, what's going on here? You know, we'll drop in the in the notes section here an opportunity for you to join our free online devotional community. This is a space we are diving deep into nervous system uh flexibility and healing work right now in the community, but you can join anytime. Like, come on in, hang out with us. And, you know, Molly and I are both somatic therapists. We both have an extensive background training in trauma and this style of embodiment work. So if you're needing a little extra support, please also feel free to let us know, reach out. We would love to talk with you about what it could look like to support you on your injured on your journey to coming back home into your body and inviting God in on that journey.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

So this was so good. I'm nerding out. You know, I love talking about this stuff so much. I could just go on and on and on, but you know, the day must go on.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

So we just thank you all so much for for listening. And as always, drop comments, questions, concerns, anything. We want to know what's on your heart. We want to know how this this is landing and how we can continue to support you. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 49:06

And if this episode moved you in any way, please, please, please share it with someone that you know would benefit from uh from it because this podcast doesn't grow, the message doesn't reach more ears without all of you resonating and feeling and sharing and expanding the message. And it just absolutely means the world to us. Every time we receive a message about the way that something hit or see that you have shared it in your stories and tagged it, tagged it and passed it along to some of your friends. I mean, it is just it goes so far beyond just wanting to see our numbers grow and really um watching the mission that God has placed on both of our hearts fully come come to life before our eyes. So thank you guys for being here and uh until next time.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

God it was that one. I don't know. Maybe next, maybe next season or year, we'll get it.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

Okay, guys, that's a wrap. If today's episode spoke to you, please let us know. Leave us a comment or reach out via email.

SPEAKER_02 50:17

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SPEAKER_00 50:24

Thanks for spending time with us today. We hope you leave your reminder that whatever season you're in right now, God's got it.