What does it look like to keep choosing healing—day by day, step by step?

In this thought-provoking episode of the Collide Podcast, we continue our powerful two-part conversation on healing with mental health counselor Breeze Potts, Collide Founder Willow Weston, and Collide staffer Kristen Mattila. Picking up where Part One left off, this episode dives even deeper into the intentional steps we can take to pursue wholeness in our emotional, spiritual, and relational lives. With honesty, wisdom, and grace, Breeze, Willow, and Kristen unpack what real healing looks like—and how it often shows up in the most unexpected places. If you're ready to do the deep, meaningful work of healing, this episode is for you.

Meet Breeze Potts, Willow Weston & Kristen Mattila

Breeze Potts is a licensed mental health counselor with a heart for guiding people through pain toward healing. Willow Weston is the founder and director of Collide, passionate about helping women encounter Jesus in real, raw ways. Kristen Mattila brings vulnerability and depth to this conversation, asking the questions we’re all wondering and sharing reflections from her own story. Together, these three voices offer a holistic and hope-filled view of the healing journey.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

• What sustainable healing looks like over time
• How to invite God into the parts of your story you avoid
• Why community is essential in the healing process
• The role of honesty, therapy, and faith working together
• How healing transforms not just you—but the people around you

How This Episode Will Encourage You

If you’ve ever wondered if deep healing is truly possible, this episode will breathe fresh hope into your journey. You’ll be reminded that healing isn’t a one-time fix—it’s a lifelong invitation to let God meet you, love you, and restore you day by day.

🎧 Haven’t listened to Part One yet? Go back and catch it—it lays the foundation for everything we unpack here in Part Two!

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Welcome to the Collide Podcast.

This is Willow Weston, the host of this podcast and the founder and director of Collide, a women's ministry that invites people to collide with Jesus, knowing that when they do, they'll never be the same. And I believe that to my core. I've experienced it in my life, and I've seen. Seen so many other people experience it.

There's so many places in our lives that feel messed up and hurting and broken and messy, and we need healing, and we desire healing, and so often we feel stuck. And so I love today's episode. It is part two of a part two series.

So my encouragement to you is that if you haven't listened to part one, to stop this podcast and go to part one and listen to that before you listen to this, because.

Because I'm having a conversation in this podcast with a professional mental health therapist, Breeze Potts, and Kristin Mattila, who's on staff at Collide, and we're talking about 10 moves you can make to walk towards wholeness. So often, I think when we desire healing, we sometimes don't know where to start.

When we desire to see redemption and reconciliation and wholeness come into our lives in the spaces that feel broken, we feel a little stuck. Like, where do I even begin?

And so this conversation is about 10 things that you can actually engage, that you can actually participate in, that you can actually do to begin to see God's wholeness start to peek in. So take a listen to this part two, where we talk about move six through 10 and be blessed. The sixth move to walk towards wholeness is go backwards.

And it's this kind of idea of, like, sometimes you have to go backwards to go forward. And I say that all the time. It probably comes all the way back to when I met Jesus.

Actually, before I met Jesus, my life was in the, you know, pooper. I was actually in despair. I was not well. And I ended up seeing a Christian counselor.

I wasn't a Christian at all, wanted nothing to do with Christians or church or whatever. And I'm in a Christian counselor's office, and I started unpacking like, 20 years of childhood pain and neglect and abandonment.

And stories I'd never shared with anyone. And my counselor asked me to think back to when I was a little girl and think about a very, like, very hard moment. And this was new work for me.

You know, I'd never done this before.

And I always think it's interesting because I didn't think of, like, oh, you know, a domestic violence Night or a day where my mom had been gone for two days or something like traumatic. She was in a car accident. None of these crazy stuff.

I thought about me sitting on this like plum velvet chair and I was by myself and I always had my cats and I was sitting there and I felt so alone.

And that's what I thought of and kind of this sense like I deserve to be alone that I'm not worthy of, like my mom coming home or my dad choosing me, which is like sort of this deep wound I have and still battle all the time. And the counselor asked me to invite Jesus onto the chair and I could not, I couldn't do it.

And obviously, like, I wasn't a person of faith, but I also just like the idea of like believing that God was there when I was hurt. And being hurt was like really hard for me to do and I was being genuine, like, I cannot do that.

I end up getting to a place later on, about a year later where I invited Jesus onto that chair. And probably one of the most powerful, unlocking experiences I've ever had where I had the bravery for.

For a year and have ever since now to allow myself to go back to the origin of moments where I felt hurt.

Like I said, it could be domestic violence for me, it could be sitting on that chair and I'm alone, and I'm left there alone for long periods of time. But the bravery it takes for somebody to like, go back to the origin of their wounds is like so incredibly hard.

And then even to invite God to go back there with you and talk to you, which is what I ended up doing with this counselor where she walked me through an experience where God met me in that wound that I feel. And, and he spoke into the belief I have that I'm not worthy of someone staying home for me or choosing me.

And it completely unlocked this thing in me that had been stuck for so long. So I'm curious when you guys hear a little bit about that concept of you have to go backwards to go forward. I mean, do you think it's possible to.

If somebody's listening and they have a broken place in their life and it's coming out sideways in whatever way. Maybe they're having relational issues or self esteem issues, or they're insecure about a lot, or they're being triggered a lot.

Whatever, whatever it is, how it's coming out sideways, but they haven't yet done the work to go back and recognize what hurt them originally that's making them still hurt today is it possible to. To experience wholeness. If you don't go back and recognize how you've been wounded. Like, how can you get healing if you don't do it?

I mean, I don't know if it's possible, because if we can't, like, pinpoint, like, what hurt us from the beginning, then it just keeps coming out, like you said, sideways in a lot of different places until you can go back and, like, fix that lie that you were believing or. I don't think it's possible. I mean, I don't know.

It's not happened that way for me in my own life and everyone that I know that's, like, been able to go backwards and deal with those traumas and different things or experiences that you had when you were younger that really shape where you are, I don't see how it's possible.

I would agree. I know that's not the warm and fuzzy answer.

However, I think the principle you're talking about is we have to name the offense, we have to name the harm, and I think that's a really important piece of our healing.

We're not talking about that today, but I think in order to find healing, the offense has to be named, and sometimes we have to go backwards in order to name that. And maybe someone's journey doesn't look exactly like yours and inviting someone to sit on a chair with them, but perhaps it looks.

Maybe it's a little more vague. Like, the idea of going backwards could be a little more vague for someone in their own journey.

But to go back and address, like, where is this woundedness coming from? And follow the thread to the point of origin and do some of the untangling that you talked about in the first podcast with your hair, right?

Like, just one piece at a time. I think I wish there were a shortcut answer, but I don't believe there is. Which is why we're talking about today.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I just think the power of naming what hurt you originally, and if it takes someone having to bring that out of you, which it often does, and it has for me, but it's also extremely brave. No one wants to go back and relive the pain that they've gone through.

I don't want to go back and relive my stepdad beating the crap out of me and my mom. I want to pretend it never happened.

But if I don't go back and I allow myself to feel all the feels and to recognize how that shaped me, how that hurt me, how that still hurts me, the fear that gets triggered in me. If I don't do the work, then I am going to be dragging that thing around with me forever.

And I think there's a lot of times where women are sensing like, something's off, something's wrong. I don't feel whole. I need healing.

But they haven't done the work to go backwards and recognize that they might be carrying around an old wound with them or a lot of old wounds with them. And that's why I think around here at Clyde, counseling is so valuable. It's such a high value of ours.

We're willing to do anything to try to take out as many obstacles in the way of one woman and hundreds of women getting the help they need. Because a counselor will help you. They'll draw that out of you and help you locate old wounds.

Because a lot of us are just carrying around so many old wounds. It's like, where do we drop our backs?

Yeah. And I feel like counselors can also help pinpoint, like, what was normal and what wasn't, maybe.

And, like, I think sometimes we have experiences, like harmful experiences when you're younger and you think that that's maybe just how people treat people or that that's just how some people talk about other people, and you kind of carry that throughout your whole life, operating out of this assumption that that's normal.

And sometimes having a counselor to be like, that never should have happened, or that's a lie, you can kind of release that, and you don't have to live out of that, like, false belief anymore. So I think that's helpful, too.

Absolutely. Let's talk about move number seven, Grief Breeze.

Can you talk to us about why grieving is such an important part of experiencing healing in our lives?

Yeah, I think grief is universal. And I mean, I don't. I don't really want to be the grief counselor, but I think that's actually where my work started.

And I. I think I have to admit to you guys and to people listening that it is a formative experience that we're all going to experience, and going through it in a healthy way is what leads us towards further wholeness. Now, let me be really clear to clarify. I don't wish grief experiences on people. I do not.

And also, we will all experience loss that may look like someone close to us dying. It may look like a really major transition in our life. A move, a job, change, something.

So this isn't death specific, but I think the reason grief is so important in moving towards wholeness is because, like, we were Talking in the first podcast, it is the acknowledgement of something that took up a lot of space in our life. That was that that had meaning, that had value, that had.

Some.

Some big piece of us. And we have to find a way to acknowledge and express that in order to find the new way forward. And I want to be really cautious because I.

About how I say that is. That's really delicate for some people. This is. There's grieving people in our community. This is such a personal thing. It's.

It's hard to kind of talk about it in such general terms, but I just think that acknowledging places where we have had a loss or a transition will also help us acknowledge our feelings, which also helps us move towards being grounded and healthy individuals.

Breeze, you mentioned that your work started from a place of grief or started because of grief. And I don't know how much you want to share about that, but I'm kind of curious.

If you want to share in your state of grief, what were the things people were telling you that made you almost feel ashamed of needing to grief? Like, what were the things that, like, the unhealthy ways that we sort of like almost.

We almost halt grief for people when they need to walk through a grieving process.

Like, time is a. Is a funny thing. You know, a certain amount of time has passed, and I think there's this cultural expectation that people ought to feel different.

And I don't think we ever feel different. If we've been. If our lives have been touched by grief, I think we feel different. I don't.

We don't return to a pre grief state, but I think there's this sort of cultural expectation that, like, we'll get back to being happy and, yeah, I'll laugh again and I'll, you know, have fun again, and I will still miss my twin voice. I will still miss people in my life that are no longer here. Like, that's it. It's just different now. So it's not a before and after. It's a.

Like, grief is a shift. It is a movement in my life that's making space for something new. Never been here before. Never lost this friend before. You know, like someone.

Someone's absence in your life is a thing. I don't have another way to say it. And to assume that people won't carry that with them, I think is a really.

Is a really significant harm that our culture is perpetuating. And I think. I know it comes from good intentions of just wanting people to be happy. And that's Just that just seems hollow to me.

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When you, when you talk about that and you.

You share so openly about your own loss and this sort of expectation that somehow you're not supposed to keep carrying that after a certain amount of time. I think there are so many people that can resonate with that. How is someone supposed to give themselves permission to grieve?

I say get with someone who, like, get with. That's a bad phrase. But, like, be in relationship.

If you can't see it here, I don't know where you can say it. By get with a therapist, we don't mean what teenagers mean.

I think I mean like sort of get in the path of someone who will help you make space for your grieving. When that's hard, be with people who are going to make space for your feelings even when you can't.

So I think that's where community comes in, whether that's family, friends.

Maybe that's a counselor, maybe that's, you know, a spiritual director, you know, mentor or someone like that, but that sometimes we need help and we need compassion. Someone saying it's okay, like, these feelings matter, they make sense.

And just to have someone encourage that in us helps us be able to more readily acknowledge, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, this is a thing.

When you think back to experiencing that tremendous loss, do you think of someone who made space for you? And what did that look like? How do you remember that now? What did that do for you?

Yeah, I think. I think there was a lot of people that helped make space for me, which then helped me make space for me.

And I mean, the short answer is those experiences led me to where I am now.

Not every story is going to have that type of outcome, but I am only a counselor because of my own grief story and because people in my life helped me come to terms with the things I was wrestling with and feeling and like, get healthy about them. And. And that led me to want to help other people get healthy with their feelings of grief. And so, like, it's been hugely transformative for me.

Again, I know that's not everyone's story, but I think, I think it is. It cannot be said enough that people can have such a significant influence just by saying, tell me more.

Your feelings matter, of course, of course you feel sad. Of course you feel whatever it is they feel without judgment, without a hurry up and get over it,.

Tell me more. And of course sounds so different than, shouldn't you be over that by now? Or, you know, God will give you another baby.

Or all these things that we say, like, God only gives people what they can handle.

All things.

Tell me more. And of course are so different. Yeah, right? Yeah.

I had a good friend in high school who passed away and then drinking, driving accident. And to add to your phrases at the funeral, I love these people dearly. But someone said to me, you know, no more tears because they're in heaven now.

And it just hung with me as though tears aren't allowed because, like, they're with God. And what I would want to say in response now, many years later, is my tears matter.

And I do hope there with God, two things can be true at the same time.

That's interesting because I spoke at a retreat, I think, Kristen, you were with me on this retreat. And I think of the story where I think it was like a Friday to Saturday night retreat.

And this woman came up to me after the first session of speaking and, you know, I just tried to get right down to business things like, let's get. Skip the fun and games and like, let's see like some work happen in our hearts and lives with Jesus.

And this woman came up to a young woman, maybe like late 20s or something. I guess I'm getting old because I'm starting to say late 20s. Whippersnappers.

Anyways, this woman comes up to me and she's like, I. I don't know, like, why I'm crying. And I'm like, well, you know, it's okay if you're crying.

You know, we kind of have this kind of initial talk, but they had the retreat, had plans, we couldn't kind of finish it. And then Saturday morning she comes up to me and says the same thing. And I said, why don't we talk this afternoon?

She keeps saying, like, I don't know why I'm crying, like, why am I so crying this thing that happened was so long ago, I shouldn't still be crying. Like I'm good with God, right? Like, if I'm good with God, I shouldn't be crying.

And I thought this very interesting theology, like, and a very like, unhealthy belief because she's doing that thing she's shoving down, stuffing it down.

So anyways, we have a sit down conversation at one point at this retreat and basically she was dating somebody who didn't believe in God and the differences in both of their values started to become more and more evident. And she felt like they were headed towards marriage or breakup and she felt like they were supposed to break up.

And she broke up with him and he, at some point after that, ended his life.

And people told her to move on and get over it and that she shouldn't have emotions about it, that she was doing God's will and she should just move on.

And for her, she was carrying this like giant weight of she knew she made the right choice for her own life as far as, as marriage, but this person into their life and here, years later, like, she's now married to someone and like, I, I think like full fledged adulting and she's carrying the weight of not ever being invited to grieve this incredible loss that she experienced.

And the idea that we shouldn't be crying, that we shouldn't make space to be sad or mad or feel all the feels is like, mind, I don't know where we're getting this because we're kind of saying, like, if you're good with God, like, then you should be good. Whereas I see Jesus, like, Jesus wept. Jesus showed up to people in their hardest places and made space for their emotions.

I don't see Jesus being like, if you're good with me, don't shed a tear. I mean, he actually wept free. Like, I don't know where we're getting this.

I think, Pete, I think we, our culture, I mean, I think we just run at such a fast pace that sometimes people's sadness, specifically tears, can be misunderstood.

Like in the example of this woman you're talking about, like people telling her she shouldn't, you know, she should get over it and like, shouldn't have feelings.

If she does have, if she does have tears or experience sadness, then it might get misunderstood or it could have been potentially misunderstood as though, like she still wanted to be with that person. And so I think there's like some weird, like unspoken messages that get oddly misconstrued.

And I just think it's because we run at such a fast pace, no one's slowing down to say, like, oh, help me understand, like, what are you feeling? Like, where are the tears coming from?

They seem sort of out of the blue, like, maybe this person's never talked about that person in their life, and now all of a sudden they're crying. So if we're not trying to understand, then that also perpetuates this. Like, and therefore, we can't say anything, we can't speak up.

We can't be open with anyone. And I just think. I think that's really unhelpful because then it just creates more subtle expectation for all of us.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I go back to that and just think, wow. I mean, the indicator of, like, why are you still crying?

You're still crying because you're still grieving, because you haven't given yourself any space now or 10 years down the road. So let's sit in this and invite God into it and invite yourself into it, you know, so next move, battle lies and replace them with truths.

And this is kind of. This idea of making this move is it's kind of work, but it's no longer letting your past determine your present.

And sort of recognizing the lies that you believe about yourself.

Both have been spoken to you by other people that you've begun to believe about yourself from past wounds, past experiences that maybe, you know, culture in the world has put on you, and you've started to speak to yourself. And so we.

When you don't do the work of recognizing the lies that you believe about yourself, you'll carry that into every single job interview, birthday party, church, community.

And so there's work to be done around recognizing what am I believing about myself that I might even be saying to myself all day long that's making me act out of wounds and lies rather than out of truth and beauty. And then how do I unseat those lies and replace them with God's truth?

So I'm kind of curious because I know both of you guys and me with women, do a lot of work of helping women recognize lies. How have you done some of this work either for yourself or with other people?

And what have you found helpful to unstick and then restick God's truth onto you?

There's so many lies that we believe, and I have found it helpful to have, like, like, trusted friends or mentors or people in my life that can help me catch myself when I'm in, like, a lie spiral. And I'm believing all of these Things.

I have this friend, and one time I was talking to her about, like, there's this wrong with me and this, and, like, not good enough or whatever. And she was like, you don't see yourself right? And I was like, what do you mean? And she's like, you don't see yourself right.

I see something much different in you than the lies that you're choosing to believe. And I think it's helpful sometimes to have people reflect truth back to the lies that you're projecting out.

And for me, that's been helpful to do, like, in community with other people, and then I can then do the same for other people, because I just feel like we battle so many insecurities as women, and I hear it and see it all the time. And so being able to point out the strengths and the beauty and the goodness in other people helps to unstick those.

It feels like a really hard thing to do. It's way easier.

You hear one lie from one person, and it's like, you'll believe that your whole life when you could have had hundreds of people say good things about you. There's something about those lies that stick really hard. And so sort of like, repetitive reminders of the truth have been helpful.

Absolutely.

To add to what Kristen's saying, sometimes I think about lies. You know, the house of mirrors, like at a fair or a carnival. You know, there's the short, squatty mirrors and there's the long, lean mirrors.

Sometimes I just have to kind of check in with myself or with people I'm in relationship with, where we're having that kind of conversation that Kristen's talking about where. Where we can be reflecting truth back to each other, but, like, what kind of mirror are we looking in?

And is this one accurately reflecting my image back?

And sometimes it's just a helpful metaphor for me to check in and realize, oh, I'm looking in a short squatting mirror and check myself and move over to the more accurate mirror, which will reflect more accurate truths to me. So that's a silly example, but sometimes I think I use visual metaphors quite a bit in my life, so I think of that.

I also think of anytime I hear myself making a really strong statement like, I'm going to use, you know, you shouldn't feel this way. I have to take out the word should and rewrite the sentence.

So I know this sounds kind of almost like a grammar lesson, but the way I begin to identify the lie is by recognizing the word that is not supposed to be in the sentence. And so I rewrite the sentence and it helps me. Oh, I do feel this way. And then I feel like I can land there more easily and do that work.

But the I shouldn't feel this ways are perpetuating all sorts of lies that we won't go into all of them right now. So if I can just rewrite the sentence or reframe the language in which is in my head, sometimes that's helpful.

Yeah. I don't know if it's because I'm kind of a preacher chick, but I like preach to myself.

So if I'm in my head, like, I could be sitting in a meeting, I could be right here be my car.

But if I'm finding myself starting to feel or I have to do something hard, like we all get tasked to do something hard and you go into like self debasement mode and you start naming, like telling yourself all the reasons why you can't pull it off, you know, and sometimes I just got to like, I gotta like pep talk myself up and be like, no, like God made you, God purposed you, your life matters. Like, God didn't put you here for no reason. Like, I literally have to like preach to myself to get myself out of all the lies that I.

Sometimes I think we almost spin out of control to the point where we're saying such terrible things about ourselves and we don't even know. And you're like 20 minutes down the road in your car and then you're like, wait a second, snap out of it.

And so I have to like actually give myself a sermon and tell myself like, oh no, girl. And like just go off. I don't know. If you guys do this, can you.

Call me sometime and give me a sermon?

Heck yes. I went to this, this thing last year and I think we're going to do more of this next year.

But in a room full of teenagers and, uh, I invited them to write on post it notes the lies they've begun to believe about themselves and gave them some kind of, you know, pointed questions to help them recognize what those might sound like. Like, you're ugly, you never live up to your dad's expectations, you're a failure, you'll never be who other people want you to be, all that stuff.

So you kind of like invite them. And when we made space for the them to do this, it was painful because they each got an entire post it note, you know, Stab.

Yeah, and I had to, I had to like stop us. Like, it just kept going and going and going and you know, if we don't start battling lies as an early age.

Like, we live out of those lies, and next thing you know, we're dating and we're already assuming the guy's going to break up with us before we've even met him at the coffee shop. You know, we're living out of our lies.

Okay?

And so the work feels so important to reach healing.

But it is lifelong work to, like, keep preaching to yourself, keep replacing those lies with God's truth that you are God's workmanship, you are God's child, you are God's creation. Like, I have to do that work all the time for myself and, like, invite other people to do that work, too. That's a big one.

So the ninth move to walk towards wholeness is engage in spiritual practices that allow the Lord to meet you in the middle of the mess. I'd love you, Madeline, to jump into that ninth move. And why you think that's so important?

Yeah, the reason I think that one is so important is because I stopped engaging in spiritual practices when I felt like I was in the middle of the mess. There's this verse in 1st Peter 4:12 in the message that says, like, friends, when life gets really difficult, don't think that God's off the job.

And life was, like, really difficult and messy. And I thought God wasn't on the job. And I thought that I used to engage in spiritual practices because I expected God to reward me for that.

But then things just. Nothing seemed to be happening or working out, and I was still in pain and still broken.

So I thought that, like, Lynn, what's the point of a spiritual practice? But over time, I realized the importance of engaging with God in the mess and in the middle of the brokenness, even if you don't feel like it.

And I think I've, like, over time, like, developed, like, other practices of, like, what that looks like. And I think I used to be like, oh, that means, like, reading your Bible in the morning or praying.

And maybe that's what that spiritual practice looks like for you, but those things are still important. But it was like learning about other ways of praying, like breath, prayer. And I'm like, there's so many ways to pray and engage with God.

And so that was really helpful. And I think we kind of were talking about it a little bit earlier about, like, noticing goodness, and kind of reminds me of, like, planning joy.

And to me, that sort of has become a little bit of a spiritual practice because I think there's that story in the Bible of Elijah and like, he was, like, totally overwhelmed and losing it and wanted to totally give up. And God was like, why don't you just, like, take a nap and have a snack? And that always, like, really resonates with me.

Not just because I love snacks and a nap.

You do, you do.

I was like, that could be a spiritual practice. In the middle of the mess is just, like, calming down and taking a nap.

And then slowly but surely, I feel like those spiritual practices start to become more accessible again.

So that's kind of why that one feels, like, personally important to me, because I was pretty lost and disconnected from God in the mess, and I, like, started to find my way back in new ways, and that's been helpful.

Well, and I love how you're encouraging people to find their own thing by just sharing about how you found yours. Yes. I think the principle is universal. Right. We all need to find a way to engage with God, but mine might look a little different than yours. But I.

But even you telling me that you found it even in from a place of hardship makes me feel encouraged. Like, oh, I might be able to do that too.

Yeah, it's hopeful. Yeah. I mean, I think about, you know, you guys know this, but my mom passed away this year.

And I think about, like, a lifetime of wanting healing for my mom because that would also. I felt like that was my ultimate. Like, if you just heal my mom, then my life will also be more whole and more easy. And, you know, she.

She was a terrible alcoholic, and I didn't get that healing.

And it's easy to, like, disengage from God when you don't get what you want, because you can either start to feel like he's not real or he's not good, or he's not personal, or he's, you know, not helping you for whatever reason. And yet I think about all the years that I didn't get what I wanted. They get the healing I wanted.

But, man, like, the time spent me with the healer, asking him to heal other parts of my life, to. To be with me in my sadness, to be with me in all the ways. I feel like I'm a mess because I had a mom who was. Was an addict.

I can imagine if you remove the healer out of the equation so you don't get the circumstantial change you want. And then you. You're just like, hands up, and you're like, I don't want to spend time with you now.

I'm like, not only a wreck from, like, living with an addict, mom and all the way that that has affected me, but now I'm like blocking like the one who comforts me, the one who.

He might, you know, he might not choose to wave a magic wand on my mom's life when she's not willing to participate in her own healing, but he's certainly willing to sit with me in my sadness. So I think it's really interesting that the ninth move is to engage in spiritual practices to allow the Lord to meet in your rest.

Cause sometimes in the mess, when he doesn't clean it up, where we block him, he's still there.

He's still standing there and he wants to meet us and he's the healer and we want to move towards wholeness, but we don't feel like we're getting what we want yet. He's there. Like I'm. But I'm. My presence is here and I'm standing with you in it.

And so I think it's a good question to kind of ask ourselves, how are we pushing God out of our mess? You know, like, are we saying to God, you can only come in when things are cleaned up, but we want you to heal us?

Right?

Because then what does that indicate?

Right?

Yeah.

10Th move, guys. 10Th move. Seek out help. Why is that so important?

When I was thinking out, I mean, we've talked a lot about in this podcast around like therapy and counseling and wanted this to be a step because I think that that can be a really beautiful part of like our journeys of healing and walking towards wholeness is getting that professional help. And when I was preparing for this, I was sort of thinking about like, why, why don't we take that step? Why don't we seek out help?

And I was, I have this like, like this short, tiny little poem that Morgan Harper Nichols wrote in her collection of poems called all along you are blooming. And it sort of highlights, I think, why sometimes we don't seek out professional healing and then shows us that why it might be helpful.

But she says, for the walls you built to protect yourself gave you a narrow view of the world. They stunted your limbs and you struggled to breathe.

So maybe now is the time to allow lights interruption pouring in through the cracks, reminding you of meaningful life on the other side. You were seeking safety, but staying behind these self made walls has never been the way. And that just rang so true for my own life around.

I was trying to stay safe and be in control and heal my own life and take care of my own mess.

But by doing that, it actually like Stunted my own growth and limbs and prohibited me from healing until I was able to, like, take that step and seek out help and invite other people in, whether that's like friends and mentors and professional therapists to help me walk through that stuff. That I realized that there's like a whole other life on the other side. And so I think it can be a really beneficial step for people to take to.

To encounter counseling and try that out.

Absolutely, yeah. Breeze, you're a therapist. Do you have anything to add to that? Why is it so important to call you up?

I think. I think what I'll say is we're made for relationship. And so I don't know that I feel like I can sit here and say, everyone needs one of me.

That isn't necessarily a point, but we need someone to help walk with us that has more objectivity about our life than we do at times. So I think that is helpful. And the thing I tell all new clients when they come in is that the reach out is the biggest step.

And like, I don't know, like, the acknowledgement that we could benefit from support in whatever form that comes from is so important and it will be so worth it, even if you can't see exactly how. So I just encourage people to act on that impulse that maybe support could be helpful because I think it's leading you somewhere good.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. There's so much I think about just in my own life that I've experienced in a counseling office.

It's like God using it to heal so many parts of my life. I mean, reaching out and getting help is a brave move.

The idea of having space every week, every few weeks, that's just for you to process and someone inviting you to draw, you know, to draw out the deep in you to have invite you to go backwards, to make space for your feelings, to give you permission to grieve all of these things. It's what therapists are so beautiful at. And God can use therapy and God can use counselors.

He can also use mentors and pastors and good friends to come alongside you. But certainly I'm not sure how easy we can walk towards more wholeness in our life all, all alone. And so I love that that's our tenth move, you guys.

I know we could talk about these topics forever. It's so fun to have you guys in the Clyde podcast room and just, we're like total nerds when it comes to this stuff.

So I hope you who are listening are also a nerd about it. But I feel like we could just jones on this all day.

But truly like our heart for doing this was so people listening could feel like healing's possible. Absolutely. And these are some moves you can make. And so I appreciate you guys coming in, having this convo with me.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Well, friend, we just covered a lot of material in this two part series and I could have nerded out for a lot longer talking about these 10 moves. There were so many that I took ravenous notes and know that I'm going to be taking next step steps in my own life.

I hope you feel encouraged as you decide to participate in giving God that big yes to participating in the healing that he desires for your life, that you desire for your life. You are not out of control. You are not helpless. There are things that you can do even today. Sometimes it's the simplest things that get us unstuck.

And I think that's what I love about this conversation. Sometimes it's just inviting someone else in. Sometimes it's giving yourself permission to grieve. Sometimes it's going backwards to go forward.

And by the way, if you're feeling like you might need to go backwards and deal with some past pain, we have an amazing 12 part Bible study called the Birds and the Lilies. And there's a section in that Bible study that actually walks you through a process to go backwards so that you can go forward.

So make sure to check that out. And I mentioned this in part one. But do truly check out our counseling bundle.

It's an amazing online course where you can spend time with 12 professional mental therapists as they teach you on 12 different topics to bring healing into your life. Make sure you check out our freebie online and exercise to help you battle the lies and replace them with truth.

Some of us just struggle with believing lies about ourselves and they affect the way we live and the way we engage relationships and the way we carry out our lives and the way that we dream or don't dream. And so make sure you get that. We have so many resources. Check out our website at wecollide.net and I really encourage you.

If this episode blessed you in some way. Think about a friend who is desiring some healing in their life right now and pastor it on. It's an easy, simple thing you can do.

It not only shares the work and the ministry that we're doing with other people, but you could simply be handing someone a gift by sharing this episode with them today. I hope that you'll keep colliding and know that you are loved and you are worthy of healing.