So many people work non-stop to finish their checklists and reach their goals. Along the way, you might forget to rest not just your body but your soul and spirit as well. While working hard isn’t a bad thing, neglecting rest can impact your life greatly. However, you’ll learn that you can rest while working. You don’t need to earn God’s love. He is always there for you to come and rest your weary self.
Susan Fleming joins us today to share how you can stop spending your life striving and hustling 24/7 and, instead, find rest in the Lord. She talks about the Kingdom of God and where salvation can bring you. Tim and Susan also discuss how you can intentionally build a firm foundation for your relationship with God.
Listen to this episode and learn how you can enjoy life and lead your business with less stress when you rest in God’s love.
3 Reasons to Listen:
- Find out how understanding your faith and belief can help you find your way forward.
- Discover what makes a good foundation for a deeper relationship with God.
- Learn what it means to rest your spirit, soul, and body.
Resources
About Susan
Susan Fleming is a business alignment therapist who teaches leaders to multiply LIFE - Legacy, Impact, Freedom, and Energy. As a coach and a licensed mental health therapist, she is passionate about changing the toxic entrepreneurial culture that is leading people to burnout. Susan hopes to help people ditch the hustle mentality and, instead, work from God’s rest.
Susan is also the co-author of the bestselling book, Just Say No: 14 Transformational Keys to Set Healthy Boundaries in Business and Relationships. Her journey in life revealed to her how expertise in psychology fits together with faith and coaching.
Want to know more about Susan and her work? Visit her website, Facebook and Youtube.
Episode Highlights
[02:35] What Does Susan Do?
- Susan is a coach, author, and speaker. As a licensed mental health therapist, she focuses on business alignment.
- When your spirit, soul, and body are in alignment, then you can you work on aligning with your business assignment.
- There are three primary business assignments: income, influence, and impact. It’s important to know which assignment aligns with you; the other two will follow.
- Susan approaches her work as a business alignment therapist from the perspective of her faith and belief in God.
[03:44] “Working with my clients, we first focus on them as the person and get that alignment of the spirit, soul, and body. What does that look like to be spirit-led and operate in that way? Then looking at their business, we also want to be in alignment with their business assignment.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[05:33] Growing Up with Susan
- At a young age, Susan went through early childhood trauma.
- Therapy helped her greatly, and she realized she wanted to help people the same way.
- The hardships and struggles you go through can become God’s way of leading you to the right path.
- Susan believes that her path always led to helping others through her profession.
[12:40] Faith Shaping Lives
- Susan has devoutly attended church from a young age. However, it wasn’t until eight years ago that she grew to understand her faith and connect with the Lord.
- At that time, she was unhappy with her life and realized she needed to make a change. Susan prayed to God and asked.
- Susan never doubted God, but she never truly understood what salvation in Him brings. God opened her eyes and answered her prayers.
[16:58] Choosing to Change
- A catalytic event pushes people to make a change, including Tim.
- It’s rare for people focused on growth and development to change and try new things intentionally.
- Before the crossroads that led Susan to today, she spent her mornings with the Lord. That was how He invited her to become a coach.
- She didn’t understand at first what it means to be a coach. Fortunately, she met someone who helped therapists become coaches.
[20:26] What It Means to be a Counselor and a Coach
- People often lump together counselors, therapists, coaches, and other similar professions.
- Counseling is more reflective and focused on the past. On the other hand, coaching guides people to look at the present and the future.
- Susan has experience as a counselor and as a coach. Her experience and expertise allow her to help her clients fully through the past, present, and future.
[23:16] “I love that I have the comparison of [coaching and counseling]. And I love that I can do both and I think it helps my clients so much more as well. Because inevitably, there's something that comes up that is related to your past that's now impacting your present.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[26:18] Kingdom Principles
- Susan doesn’t shy away from doing her work with a Christian perspective.
- To best support her clients, Susan prayed to God for help in finding the right words to use.
- The term rest conveys what it means to work from God’s rest. It’s not just about physically resting; it’s for the spirit, the soul, and the body.
- Religion tends to tell people to work for God. However, what He truly wants is for people to work with Him.
- Rest means letting go of rules and checklists and choosing to work from a place without overwhelm or stress.
[29:51] “[God] told me, ‘Religion tells people to work for me. But I want people to work with me.’ It was like my eyes just opened to this whole world of relationships and partnerships, and rest is really just letting go of those rules, letting go of the checkboxes.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[32:10] The Hustle Mentality
- Many people make an idol out of their performance, work, and effort.
- Society holds performance in high regard. This mindset spurs people to work without rest, thus falling into stress and overwhelm.
- The culture has been built to be even more challenging for women. They have to juggle expectations in professional and household responsibilities.
- You have to be intentional; talk to your spouse about expectations.
[39:30] The Kingdom of God and the System of Darkness
- Susan and Tim define the two realms as the Kingdom of God and the System of Darkness.
- Jesus came down from heaven to help people understand salvation and the Kingdom of God.
- Salvation is not the end. It is merely the doorway for believers to receive the inheritance of the Kingdom.
[45:07] God Loves You
- Susan helps her client realize that God wants a relationship with them.
- You don’t have to earn or perform well to receive God’s love.
- While it seems easy, simply receiving is an obstacle many people face.
- God is not asking for anything in return. Let Him love you and allow that to build a trusting relationship with Him.
[47:14] “God doesn't ask for anything back. We're not obligated at all to love him. And that's where I find the hardest part for people — just letting him love you and building that trusting relationship with him.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[48:15] Being God’s Child
- People often struggle to understand God’s love. Many don’t believe they are lovable.
- Your soul consists of your mind, will, and emotions. It takes time and effort to adjust and change the way of thinking your soul has felt in the past.
- When you align with the spirit, you’re shifting your soul to receive God’s love. You’ll then understand what it means to be one of God’s children.
[52:20] The Foundations of a Relationship With God
- Love and trust are the foundation of your relationship with the Lord. Unfortunately, not many people fully trust Him.
- You can build trust when you believe in His love.
- Many of society’s systems, including the Church, can hinder the development of this relationship.
- The pandemic has led to significant changes in the Church. It’s the beginning of the reformation that we need to move forward in the right direction.
- Susan is helping people walk along their path and fulfill their assignment in the Kingdom of God.
[01:00:26] What You Can Do
- Start building a personal relationship with God by intentionally reading the Bible.
- Take a verse and dive deep into it. Ask the Holy Spirit for insight to learn more.
- Reading the Bible is not just about gaining knowledge. You also talk to the Holy Spirit, thus helping you cultivate your relationship with God.
- The System of Darkness may use noise to draw you away from God. When you are quiet, you’ll find yourself able to talk and interact with the Lord.
- Intentionally and personally build your relationship with God.
[01:01:26] A Prayer for You
- Susan ends the episode with a prayer to help you understand and build your relationship with God.
- Listen to the episode and take your time to pray with her.
- Susan continuously seeks the kingdom of God and God Himself.
[01:02:35] “You're getting knowledge from the Bible. But you're also cultivating that relationship with God when you're continually asking Holy Spirit to reveal things to you.” - Click Here To Tweet This
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To growing and becoming all we are created to be,
Tim
