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Ready to Experience an Exodus? This Mini Series Leads You from Fear, Doubt & Anxiety into the Promise Land
In this episode of the mini-series, Jennifer Debellis guides listeners on a transformative journey from fear, doubt, and anxiety toward self-confidence and empowerment. Drawing parallels from the Bibl...
Ready to Experience an Exodus? This Mini Series Leads You from Fear, Doubt & Anxiety into the Promise Land
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Do you crave better self-esteem and confidence but struggle to silence your
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anxiety, fears and insecurities? If so, welcome to the sisterhood of fellow
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travelers on the path to reclaiming their self-confidence and happiness. I'm
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Jennifer Debellis, award-winning author-speaker in assault survivor. I spent the
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past few decades helping young women like you overcome fear, self-doubt and
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trauma to reclaim their joy and self-worth. I cannot wait to share the secrets I
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learned on my own healing journey and help you restore your inner warrior. As I
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show you the skills and tools you need to save your own broken world. If you're
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ready to empower your inner warrior to overcome fear, doubt and anxiety, turn
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off those distractions and tune into this episode. So today I want to talk to you
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about Exodus. As in our departure from an old way of life and thinking. I don't
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know about you but I've lost a ton of time wandering aimlessly in my own
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wilderness before I stepped into the Promised Land and learned how to live to my
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fullest potential. If you no longer want to remain asleep to your fears, doubts,
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unresolved trauma and the anxiety these cause, this episode and many series is
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for you. In today's episode we'll explore what it means to experience an Exodus.
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We'll learn a little backstory on the Biblical Exodus and how it connects to our
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own journey to freedom and we'll start to unpack some strategies to stop
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wandering around aimlessly in the wilderness of our darkest hours. So I want to
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talk a little bit about what Exodus means to me and some of the Biblical
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backstory that inspired this thinking. Ultimately we have become a generation
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that has normalized a heavy reliance on others and the powers above. When we've
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actually been created to help ourselves and to lean on God, higher powers and
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others for support, provisions and guidance. So we're supposed to trust the
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process and the promised outcomes while doing our part and sometimes we
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are in the wrong things and we want instant results and we give up easily the
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moment things get hard or don't go as we hoped. And this is what leads me to that
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slave mentality that I want to talk to you about. So I want to talk to you a little
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bit first here about that slave mentality and some of the experience and
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training I have working with human trafficking survivors. So several years ago
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I was working with a trafficking survivor organization and we used to help
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people who were rescued out of human trafficking and slavery rehabilitate. And
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there was a lot of different new on steps that were involved in that process of
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teaching them how to take care of themselves, teaching them how to trust different
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forms of authority and trust systems and learn how to do things that they've
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never had to do for themselves because someone was always making all the
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decisions for them. Someone was always telling them exactly what they had to do
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in that moment what they had to do next. And then some of these
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individuals, some of these gals have been slaves since they were teenagers and
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kids. And so they've literally never gone into a store and even purchased
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something for themselves. And here we are trying to help them learn all these
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different skills, survival skills, and also you know when to rely on the
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systems that are in place for them, how those systems are in place to keep
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them safe and to provide certain things for them and how they're supposed to work
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within those systems. And I learned something really interesting while I was doing
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the work and it was rather surprising. It was a surprising twist that I didn't
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anticipate. And that was the resistance. That was going to happen. And the
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patterns of repetition that came into play to try to break down that resistance
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and that almost rebellion against trying to change, trying to learn, trying to
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adapt to freedom. I mean just let that sink in for a second. Individuals trying to
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adapt to freedom and the fear of all of that power that they now have and they
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don't know what to do with that. And sometimes that could be very overwhelming
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for a person also to have too many options and too many choices and too many
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decisions when you come from a life where you didn't have to make all of those
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decisions and they were made for you. You didn't even have to decide what you
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wanted to eat for dinner because that decision was made for you even if you had
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to make it and prepare it. Even if you had to go out and harvest it yourself,
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those decisions were still made for you. And now you have this completely
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different way of living. And so I really didn't expect that level of resistance
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and you know individuals almost like failing in the system over and over and
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over again, you know, some people actually having to be removed from our
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programming and they would lose spots and other programming that was provided
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through the government agencies that we worked really hard to get them into.
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And then they would sabotage these things. Even when they were in safe spaces
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where they didn't have prior, you know, slave owners, pims, traffickers, whatever
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you want to name them, they didn't have those individuals trying to come in and
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bring them back into the system. Even when they were in safe spaces, they still
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continue to resist these new patterns and these new systems and it didn't
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matter how much we tried to develop that trust and how much the systems kept
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showing them that they were okay. Their provisions were going to be made and
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they could do these things and that would lead them to this. It just, it was
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baffling and it had I not experienced that firsthand. The biblical story of
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Exodus might not have made the same sense to me, especially going back now as
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an older adult and revisiting that story and studying it more closely, which
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is something that I did about a year ago and I've kind of been thinking about it
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here and there ever since but recently it came up again and I'm going to wait
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to get into that with you because I want to establish a couple of things right
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now before we get into that. Okay, so whether you're a spiritual person or not, I
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want to talk about the Exodus in the Bible. It's the story of slaves being
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freed only to wander in the wilderness right outside the Promised Land and it
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was four decades. Imagine wandering around for four decades. That literally
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brings you to midlife. So imagine spending half of a lifetime. It's a long time
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wandering around in the wilderness and getting stuck there because of your
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resistance, because of that rebellion and that distrust that comes out of that
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constant acting, defiantly against the systems that are put into place to
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fulfill the promises and to lead you to that destined spot that you were
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created to be. The slave mentality is so ingrained in these Israelites. They
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wandered that desert for 40 years without being ready to enter the Promised Land.
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So think about that. They weren't ready. So they spent 40 years moving around in
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different spots, almost circling it and there was a lot of fear involved. You
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know, the land they're going to overtake us all these different things. Didn't
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matter what God promised them. It didn't matter that you know, he led them out
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of slavery. He parts the Red Sea to let them have safe passage across a big body
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of water and you know, all the other provisions that he gave them along their
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40 years in the wilderness in this desert wilderness. There's a couple other
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things that kind of stood out to me a year ago and I did this study and one of
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them was the caravan of individuals leaving Egypt and going into this wilderness
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and I forget how long they traveled the first leg of the trip. But it was it was
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a time and maybe like a couple of weeks. I'm going to come back in another
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episode and I will fact check that and and be particular. But I remember it was
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enough time to where maybe it was even longer than two weeks to where you know
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you've got the elderly, the pregnant women, the women with young children and
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the sick all at the back of this caravan and those are the weakest among them
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and they're kind of tagging along and in the story God is leading from the front
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and he shrouded by this cloud by day and he shrouded by this kind of like cloud of
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fire by night. So his identity is hidden from them but he's leading them from
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the front and the only time he comes to the back is when the Egyptians start to
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come to take back their slaves and he comes to the back now and he's protecting
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all of them right. So he gets between them he creates an obstacle between the two
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of them so that they don't pass or get sucked back in, captured back and brought
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back to slavery. And so as we were doing this study and looking at this study I
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started thinking about what happened to the people at the back you know these are
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the weakest people and you know some of the literature was talking about how
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like there were regular casualties people were dying regularly and think
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about like dying you know think about that if you're sick or you're really
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really old and you're trying to like drag yourself across the wilderness and
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and it's just a cost of this freedom. So the cost of this freedom is that young children
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pregnant women sick elderly these people are perishing in this process and so that's a really
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you know it's kind of a powerful thing but I want to like hold on to that as kind of like a metaphor
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about this concept of dying daily and the things that are sick in our own lives that
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are casualties that will die daily and they have to die they're a part of it and you know and for
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whatever reason why God allows those things to happen is a mystery. Why if even if you're not a
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faith person or you're struggling to say how can there be a God that does those things it's still
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we still have to acknowledge even the science of life the circle of life is scientific we do not
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live forever and even if we believe in the mythologies we do not in these physical bodies on this
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earth live forever and that's science and so you have this concept of these nomads moving through
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there are casualties there's loss and they're continuing they have to push through they have to
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continue on. Every time now since I did this study every time I think about this I think about
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wow that saying survival of the fittest kind of starts rooting back to these types of experiences
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where only the strong survive and make it out of these places and you can't leave people behind
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so everybody goes and you just hope that you know you can stop and rest and do the things that
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you can do to try to get everybody out but it's not a perfect system and and that's just you know
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it's devastating to think about it but I don't want us to get stuck there because I just want to
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think about how even in that protection even with being led there's still the loss and on top of
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the loss there's these 40 years so imagine what's happening in that 40 years of time and that
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slave mentality is so ingrained in these people that abuse bondage the reliance on all of their
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needs being met by their captors all of these things were normalized they were woven into the
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fibers of their being and it was just ingrained so deeply that it couldn't just be easily rooted out of
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them so much so that even though I mean think about it it's not not saying 40 days I'm not saying okay
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even after 40 days of being in the wilderness like they still didn't trust God they still didn't trust
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the process they still didn't trust like I mean they're still free they're setting up camp here
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they're setting up camp there they're still free they have this freedom they're making all these
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different decisions there's a hierarchy of community that's exists that I'm sure they have to rebuild
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there's all those little nuance things that are going on and the sense of community starts to form
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and that teamwork and all those things that have to exist in order for them to still sustain
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themselves you know and do the things that they had to do in order to get through each day and
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you know think about this they're they're not just setting up camp for 40 years and building big
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houses they're moving around and they're you know for lots of different reasons they're moving around
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but they're moving around they're not safe to just sit in one spot mean just because you know one
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chapter can't come and get them doesn't mean that there aren't other predators out there
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watching you know from a mountain top thinking about what they can do you know what they can come
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in and do I mean there's a lot of different moving parts here but for 40 years they lived in this
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no mad sense of freedom and they still didn't develop that trust that that they were going to be okay
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that they weren't going to perish and just imagine going through 40 years where you have this
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god in your life that is showing you and doing things for you and you're still just trust him
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and that distrust cost them and kept them from living the life that they were destined to live
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if they only just believed in their mission and acted accordingly imagine they're grumbling
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they're demanding their speaker Moses on their behalf keeps interseeding for them
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they need this they need that they need this and it's like oh and here it is and here's a way
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to get this and here's a way to get this and here's how to change this and here's where I want you
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to go next and over and over and over again despite that grumbling despite the constantly being met
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almost like instant gratification the very thing that we now struggle with also as a culture
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this sense of instant gratification and they still disbelief and they still don't put their trust
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in the process or to know like I don't have to know everything but I know it's going to be okay
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or I know that my needs will be met or I know that I have what it takes to do this or to do that
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that confidence that comes out of our own doing and maybe that was part of the problem too
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I'm going to think about that when I'm going to be meditating on that when I haven't a chance to
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think about that and so they're wandering aimlessly through each day and you just have to wonder like
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were they mentally escaping to some imagined better place in their heads just to get through it
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you know like we do I know I've done that where it's like you're going through something or you're
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like oh my god this is so monotonous or I can't do this anymore or you know I've got to just
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put my mind somewhere else to get through this it's like what what were they you know how did they
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get through a day you know they I don't know they couldn't like check themselves into
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you know a clinic for their mental health or they couldn't like you know take a week off to
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just be like I'm going to go to the beach and get some fresh sear you know I don't know
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maybe I'm overthinking that so how does this apply to restoring your inner warrior
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well someone recently asked me about this podcast series and what I hoped listeners would gain
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from tuning in regularly now I have several interconnected reasons why I developed the restore
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your inner warrior podcast and why I hope you'll tune in to different episodes every week but the
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one that was heavy on my heart when I was asked this question was Exodus it was I want to help people
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migrate from the places enslaving them to fear doubt trauma anxiety I want to help them
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enter their promise land and you know that saying that you can take the girl out of the wilderness
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but you can't take the wilderness out of the girl I don't believe that and it's because of this
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generation of Israelites that did enter the promise land that keeps me believing that we can
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lead and teach the wilderness out of the new creature that we become as we do the work and heal
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to restore that inner warrior so I mean think about that we actually can do that and obviously
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I'm a spiritual person so I don't even try to do that without my connection to God I don't even try
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I don't try to live a single day without that spiritual connection it's like I have to plug into
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that but I also have enough confidence and trust and assurance to know that like God has
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equipped me to do a lot of really hard stuff but also a lot of stuff that's very fulfilling
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so I'm willing to do those things that I know I have to do I trust certain processes and when I
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don't trust those processes and that resistance costs me because it always costs us and so what do
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we do to take from that and to learn the lesson and figure out what it is that we need to learn from
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that what needs to go how we need to grow and evolve and continue to become that new creature
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that we say we want to be that healed in whole and happy person that thrives in the life that we
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build and we have to do that work and that's the part no one can do the work for us so when I
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think about these Israelites who were just they moved from one point of slavery to another
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point of slavery where they were free but yet they were still enslaved by the mentality that
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they just even seeing it and living it and experiencing it they still didn't retrain and it took
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four generations maybe two let me back up those who did enter the Promised Land in the new generation
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were like in their 20s and so those mid-lifers or individuals who were mid-lifers when they left Egypt
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and now they're in their 80s now are like they're at the end of their life but those who entered
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the Promised Land were like in their 20s and so you think about it took 20 years to birth this
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new generation and rewire their DNA and then raise them up in the way to think and go in order to
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have the trust and the reliance and the work ethic it's not just here's the promise go take it
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it's also like a training up of what you need to do to inhabit these spaces which isn't just a
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physical thing it's also a mental thing it's a spiritual thing it's a type of readiness to fully
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inhabit it so you think about how you know in those 40 years 20 years into that the halfway
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from slavery where you're still free but you're still living like a slave as a nomad in the wilderness
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unable to enter the Promised Land you're birthing this new generation that is going to be prepared
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for 20 years to enter into that Promised Land and they're the ones who finally don't have that
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resistant and rebellious mindset that God allows to go in but it isn't just about allowing them
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they believed that they would succeed at the mission where everybody else was saying it's too hard
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there's too many big you know they were saying giants but do you think about how we can apply it
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there's too many big challenges there's too much trauma there's too much there's too much hurt
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there's too much it's so hard if you think about all the things that we believe and all the things
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that we say to ourselves to hold ourselves back when all we need to do is step in we need to step
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in and lean on the right support whether that's literal people or literal things in our life
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or our spiritual leaning on provision and guidance and protection and so we have the freedom
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to inhabit these spaces we've been promised that we're destined to be in these spaces we've also
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if we've done the work of setting goals and letting those goals align with the desires of our
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heart but also with the purpose that we're aware of and all of those things come together and work
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for our good then we're working toward that spot and even though it might be intimidating even
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though there might be fear attached to it we still have to boldly step even in the fear we have
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to take that step and that's where that confidence comes in that fears confidence that you're like
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okay I can do this and even if things go wrong even if I get hurt on the way I'm going to
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regroup I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to go back stronger so sometimes I think about
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Braveheart and I think about at the end where they're rising up and the rebellion is live and well
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and like even prior to this we're just going from battle to battle the casualties are just overwhelming
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and I just think about that scene where they just like swords are up and they're just charging
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into the danger and I'm not saying that's the mindset that you should have where you just
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charge in and you know like to your own peril and saying you know have the right armor have the
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right tools do the right things prior to you know going on that mission I'm just saying there are
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times where we have to take those steps and those steps have to be bold steps where we have the
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confidence despite the fear despite the doubt and the anxiety that are birthed from these feelings
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and emotions and we have to learn from it and most of the time we will see that we survive and
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that we actually thrive in the process and that we get there or we get one step closer to where it
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is we're on our way to go and that should also be encouraging to us and that should be the thing
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that builds our trust because now we're trusting in the process because we're seeing there's a
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difference between trust and faith and a lot of times people confuse the two and I was talking to
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my husband about this a couple weeks ago and he was like well trust is given and I said no trust
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is earned and sometimes trust is broken and then trust has to be re-earned it has to be healed
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demonstrate that your trust worthy again and that could take time and that's not to say that
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you know people are always entirely forgiving or they let things go it doesn't matter you know how
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many good things you do or how much you show them there will be those people who will trust you
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again and it has nothing to do with you that's a them problem because we all mess up we all need to
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be forgiven for something we all do something that somehow shakes trust and people's faith in us
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but if we can talk about faith faith is a literally like this form of trust in belief despite the
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evidence and I'm not talking about that here I'm talking about the type of trust that we have
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seen the evidence we've seen the fruit we've seen what it's produced and we still distrust it
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like there's got to be something really broken in you if you can't begin to trust something
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after repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly seeing that the benefits of it to see that it
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okay it's not the thing that you fear the thing that you actually want to be happening is happening
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and yet we still keep distrusting it or it's helping us get toward that thing that we want and we
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keep distrusting it and again I'm not saying you're stupid I'm saying there's got to be something
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broken in you that has nothing to do with that trust in that particular thing necessarily but that
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has to be dealt with so sometimes maybe we need to figure out what it is that's keeping us from
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trusting things that we should be trusting because we definitely should be establishing patterns of
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trust when there are patterns of success that are showing us that's a trustworthy thing or that's a
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trustworthy person or that thing continually keeps leading me keeps producing what I want it to
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produce and keeps leading me where I want it to be leading me so there's no reason to resist that
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there's no reason to be leery about that we can proceed with caution for everything we do but
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there's a difference between again avoidance and proceeding with caution totally distrusting and
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rebelling against the very things that are in place for us and are working for us because we have
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this whatever we have a hang up of some sort maybe it's a hang up some things broken so again I'm not
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really sure you know if you've got that issue with trust if it's a hang up if it's this broken area
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but now that I mentioned that I'm sure that's kind of light in a fire that maybe we'll be a torch
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that kind of lights the way for you down this dark path of memory to figure out what is that broken
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thing that is really weaved and intertwined into your fibers that keep you in this bondage to the
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very thing that enslaved you to begin with or that hurt you to begin with and that's often how
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trauma works and how it keeps being triggered is we don't understand that hardwire that goes in
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deeply rooted into us and those triggers are those external things where how many times do we say
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why did that just set me off that way that person maybe is a stranger there's no way that things
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are that deep where I could get that much of a rise from that particular person who's a stranger
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or that person I adore why did that just trigger me and a lot of times we just don't understand
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it's just like this dynamite that takes a while to hit the actual trigger point that's buried so
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deep inside us we don't know what it is and so I'm challenging you to kind of like take the
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torch in and figure out if there's an area in you that is an old area of slavery to a fear or a
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doubt or the anxieties that go along and are attached to these old traumas that keeps you
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distrusting the new stuff that is already demonstrated that it's trustworthy so maybe you think
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about that over the next week and I also want you to consider this do you want to remain a slave
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to these fears doubts unresolved trauma and the anxiety that these cause or are you ready to
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put in the work to stop wandering around aimlessly in the wilderness of your darkest hours so if
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this is really speaking to you today I want you to be thinking about all these things that I'm
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leaving you with in closing right now and then come back to the next episode where I'm going to
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go deeper into this Exodus topic obviously but I'm going to go deeper into some of these things
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that I said let me think about that let me think about this I'm going to be meditating on this
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hard wire that keeps us trusting the very things that enslaved us to begin with instead of trusting
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the things that continually show us the way to our freedom or have already brought us into that
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place of freedom and we just don't know how to inhabit it because we still feel tethered to the
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thing that's enslaving us so when we come back next week I'm going to jump right into that and
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I hope that you will have had time to think about these things and we can have a meaningful connection
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then so in the meantime just keep putting in that hard work to restore that inner warrior and
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restring then and rebuild that fierce confidence that helps you charge into each day
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well girl I hope you enjoyed today's episode if so don't forget to follow my channel and share
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it with girlfriends who also want to restore their self-worth and confidence also if this podcast
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inspired you consider leaving a five-star written review on Apple podcasts and as you go through
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your day may your empowered spirit part in mind guide you catch new episodes every Friday
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Ciao