This is episode 109, Life coaching and God, you're listening to the Rise up and Shine podcast with Claudine and Ashley as an empty nester and a mom with young kids, we have both shared very similar and very real struggles from chaos to coaches, we now help other women live an authentic and meaningful life, so tune in weekly for girl talk and tips on how you too can rise up and let your light shine bright, this is the Rise up and Shine podcast, welcome back listeners today, we're going to talk about coaching the coaching industry specifically is Ashley and I are both life coaches and God and how do those fit together. I know there can be times in christian circles where counseling and coaching or kind of seen as maybe a little out there, like we have jesus, we have the bible, we don't really need that right, like jesus, he will fix it, we sang that song for years, right?

And so um I've heard that quite a bit and I've had responses from people that were like, you know, do christian Christianity and coaching go together and you and I of course I do believe that we both of us practice our, we practiced our coaching with our clients through, were guided by scriptures and we teach science based tools, so we've kind of merged the two And you know, for us we've been part of a church that for many years has done one another mentoring and discipleship, whatever you want to call, it so we've been involved in other women's lives, for many many years, you for over 20 years and me over 30 years, so we've had hands on experience working one on one with women and the issues become the same now getting certified as life coaches for me, my experience was now I was able to have the tools like I had the scriptures right, but I didn't have the practical zai was like we'll just do this, just have faith or just transform your life by renewing your mind and people just look at me like what I don't understand.

So of course that's what this whole podcast is, we really have strived to help other women rise up and shine because we felt like we finally have the tools to do that in our own lives and help other women do that. Um so we've married the science and the scriptures together because really anything that science says God already said it before, that's what I find, I mean science is man's way of trying to make sense or communicate what God has already done, so um it's a that's, we're going to be talking about today, just talking about coaching from a biblical perspective and how christian women can benefit from that, right? Yeah, you know when I was going through my therapy and I was also doing a lot of research on my own, yes, I was so blown away by a lot of the research and science that has been known now and how it was so clear and it just would pop up the scripture verses right in the bible, I'm like, whoa God has been saying this all this time, but I think what happens, I can say for myself personally, right?

So as a christian and a disciple of jesus since I was 15 years old, I it just brought everything to a deeper understanding, I guess, and appreciation. And so when I was learning these things and going through my own healing process, those scriptures were so, it became so clear and precise on how I can apply things, right? So for me it was like, okay, so the bible and God was this big overall picture, but then with like, you know, the self help industry and the tools I learned from coaching or counseling or my research, those were the nitty gritty details, right? Because you're not going to find, as you're reading through the bible, you're not going to find every exact situation you're going through in the bible very clearly, right? But the principles are there, we just needed the practical right?

And so that's where the coaching comes in and what we share with our clients is that here are the practical zone where you apply these principles in scripture and science and like you said, marry them together and help use them together, right? To help your healing journey or help you process day to day situations or how to help you stress less steven wright and help break the cycle of overwhelm and to really experience what I like to say, experience the fruits of the spirit. Yeah, because I've said it over and over again that I remember feeling this place of just unhappiness and un fulfillment and you know, depression and anxiety and I was so confused because I thought I had been doing all the right things. I have so much to be grateful for. I'm healthy, my kids are great. You know, my marriage, we've had challenges, but still my husband, you know, I get to be a stay at home mom, he works, that was our, you know, what we wanted, what we desired for our family.

So I had all these things to be grateful for, but I'm not experiencing peace and joy and love and patience and what is going on. And if my kids were having big emotions, I was having a very hard time handling their big emotions which are really like their anger, right? Because it's all explosive. Yeah, they're small. But um it was just a lot of confusion. I remember and I just, I knew something had to give something had to change. What am I missing? Like that's what I thought, what am I missing here? And I just thought it was automatic, right? Oh, I'm, you know, a believer of God. And I'm a question and I followed jesus and I try to live right righteously and Godly and make good choices and but I'm not feeling these, so, what to me, it felt like it was supposed to be automatic and the coaching is exactly those practical are exactly what I was missing. How can I apply a certain scripture to why I'm frustrated that my husband doesn't help me or how do I know how to handle my Children's big emotions or, you know, deal with my own past traumas growing up, like those very specific things we experience day to day I did, I couldn't figure out how to tie, which is what we find.

That's the number one thing I think for coaching in my own experience with my own coaches is bringing awareness. It's kind of shining a light on some dark corners that maybe we're not even aware of. I think I had so many, um MS beliefs, I had learned so many wrong things and I believed them. And so for me, I definitely thought, well, when my circumstance changed, then I'm going to be happy, you know, when this happens, then I'll feel peace and when this happens, then I'll feel joy. So even learning that I had those, like, I didn't realize I had them because so much of it is subconscious and that's the thing with coaching is that we help bring light to the unconscious that people aren't conscious of and coaching has helped me become a more conscious thinker right with new thoughts, but first we have to be aware of what the old thought patterns are and so many of them are default thinking like you shared their from our childhood. We may have had negative childhood experiences were most likely if not completely raised by imperfect parents, right?

I don't think any of us were raised by jesus. Nor were my Children tried as hard as I could to be a great mom still do, but I'm imperfect. So we had imperfect teachers. We had imperfect friends. We were raised and surrounded by the imperfect our entire childhood and young adulthood. So we have a lot of subconscious thoughts that are not based on truth. They're not based on God's word or his love right there, imperfect. And that's what continually motivates us, so to speak subconsciously to behave the way we do or to believe what we believe. And coaching is a great way to expose the light to those subconscious thoughts and bring us to a place where we can have conscious thinking, mm hmm. One of the scriptures that we highly emphasize in our coaching programs is Philippians 48. Finally, brothers and sisters. Whatever is true, Whatever is noble, whatever is right, Whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things and whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you, so that I haven't written all over my house.

I talked to my kids about this all the time because we will experience what we think, right? And we find that all over in the bible guard your hearts and your minds, right? We hear that all over. And so this is the practical. So we have to really have the conscious thinking as you were talking about and choose what we focus on. We have the power to choose what we want to focus on, and the more we focus on something, we're going to experience that feeling that comes with it, right? So the more we focus on what frustrates us about our spouse, we're going to feel frustration with our spouse and guess what we're going to find out there are life will reflect our beliefs. That's why it's so important to be a conscious thinker, because if we really believe my husband is blank, blank blank, that's what we're going to see. That's just proven our brains find the proof of what we believe is always seeking for evidence for that.

And if we think, wow, he's the most gentle, kind, loving man, our brains will find evidence to prove that it's remarkable. It is. And again, even with ourselves and as we talked about the five lies to stop believing in our last episode, we want to choose wisely. We want to choose thoughts that serve us and help us show up the way we want to for our families, for ourselves, definitely for God. And so it really takes that conscious thinking and that's exactly what coaching does, coaching helps us decide how we want to actually show up. I don't know how many of us have actually sat down and thought about how do I want to show up for my Children today, I want to show up for my husband today, how I want to show up for myself today. How do I want to show up for God today? I don't ask myself on a daily basis. No, but it's so it brings a lot of awareness. Oh, that's a great place to start. And as christian coaches, we have a biblical worldview. So we come from a place where that's our foundation, right? The scriptures are our foundation.

So whatever tools that science teaches us that have proven to work For us, it still comes from a biblical perspective, I think of Colossians 32 where it says set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. I mean that's the difference too. If you go to a Christian coach and you're a Christian, you're going to get feedback. You're going to get probing and questions and a conversation that is first and foremost biblically centered, whereas if you go outside of that you may get a lot of great help certainly, but it might not have that same worldview. So I know for me my first coach was a dear friend who is a grief coach and she really helped me get in touch with a lot of emotions, I didn't even know I had, but I'm so grateful that she was christ centered first, you know, it could have gone a lot of direction. I remember early in my marriage, my husband and I before we were christians, we went to counselors who were not christ centered, so a lot of them were like you guys just need to divorce, this is not working out right? You know that was, I mean we were two years into our marriage and they were like, yeah you guys, you know, you may just need to divorce and we had two Children by that time, so again it helps to have that kind of coaching from that world view and perspective and I feel like it goes hand in hand, like I will joke and not even joke, I mean I believe it's true, but I feel like jesus is my life coach, right?

He models it, he models the scriptures in life, right? He ask probing questions a lot of times in the bible, hell you know, I love the paralyzed man at the well, he's like, do you want to get well, like he didn't force him, he's like, hey, do you want to get well and then the guy made excuses and he helped him overcome his excuses and I look at coaching like that, like do you want to get well and if so let me help you would get you to think exactly, stop making excuses, right? So coaching and God go very well hand in hand, it's not a self help or it's not an either or you can't have one. I mean right now as of today, while we're recording, I have uh a business coach, I have a fitness coach also known as a trainer and I have a financial coach also known as a financial planner. So these people have all asked a lot of questions, they've tried to gather information and they've asked where I want to go and then they're coming up, they're helping me come up with a plan and my husband because he's part of the financial one, but the business and the fitness or my own.

So I had to have my own, you know, where do I want to go? And they're helping me get there. So I completely believe in the value of coaching, right? Well, and that's the great first question is what is your goal? Right? And so for my coaching program, I focus on christian stay at home moms because what in my personal experience, when I hear from others is that being a christian stay at home mom motherhood and homemaker become our identity and not just our role, right? It goes way beyond our role and that is not what God intended. And so with christian coaching um or for the stay at home mom, I asked the same question, what is a goal? You have a right and a lot of that is how do you want to feel and how do you want to show up for your family? Because most of us feel like we're always falling short, right? And so and I lived in that place and so if you don't have a goal in mind, if you don't have a mark that you're trying to hit, what do they say? You hit it every time, right?

You're just wandering aimlessly and you, I don't know, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to think, I don't know what, I don't know how I want to show up. I don't know any of these things and that is exactly what we do with coaching, but it is all aligned with scripture and with God and that is our foundation for our lives, that is who we are right. And so it all lines up and so it's not one or the other and really, I mean it's funny because sometimes I watch movies or shows from the nineties and all this self help so far out there that the world was not ready for and it was poked fun at, but look at it now, I mean it has just exploded all over the place and so many people are searching too feel better, really feel better, live better, love better, which is actually part of your program and that is what people are searching for and we all needed those practical, right? And especially as christian women, we have the principles, we have the foundation, but I just need more clear, precise practical to help me in my day to day, help me to show up as my best and feel my best and feel confident as a mom, I'm not ashamed that we're failing our families, right?

Not that the house isn't clean enough or my Children aren't as well behaved as I'm really trying to work on or you know, am I going to be looked at? Like if I go to school, drop off in PJS and a messy bun or I mean is that we tend to play in our head, at least for the moms with young kids. Exactly, right. I mean, we help you with your goals and to ask yourself that what do, what would I want more of in my life and that's okay to ask, especially as a christian woman to ask that question and not everyone needs a coach, some people are self motivated and can do it on their own. I got to a place where I was stuck. So primarily we work with women that are stuck, you know, and they want to have a breakthrough, they just need to get to the other side and It's not a long term thing and you know, I think of the scripture in first Thessalonians five 11, which says therefore encourage one another and build one another up just as you already are doing, and that would be a great um practical for if everyone in the church did that, but not everyone is equipped to do that, only a handful of people are equipped to do that, you know, and you and I have been around a long time, so we tend to have people in our life that can do that just from within our church, but a lot of people don't have access to that.

They don't have access to someone that can encourage and build them up, right, that can help them draw them out, get those questions asked, start the conversation to help them discover what it is, they really want, help them design the life they want to live and do it all with the context of the scriptures, so that is coaching in God. For me, it's helped develop my relationship with God to an even deeper level, much deeper. I've been free from all these expectations and these lies that we talked about on our last episode and I enjoy my relationship with God so much more now, so much more. It was really the best investment that I've made so far personally. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's really made my love for jesus even just on such a whole new level, you know, like how you said that he's like the greatest life coach, That's so true. The probing questions. I love that. To help the other person that is talking to discover, right And really if you think about that's empowering.

So that's why coaching is so helpful because we help empower you, Why we give some of that power back and remind you of the power you have Really. Exactly. And that you can make some choices in your life. That can change the trajectory of how you feel and how you think and how you show up. It's pretty amazing. Well hopefully this episode has encouraged you and built you up. That is our hope. So that everyone that we come across or that listens is can rise up and shine in their own life and live their best life and live it to the full until next time. Alright everyone, thank you for joining in on our conversation today Here on the rice. I've been shined podcast. If you haven't already, please take a second to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss an episode. And while you're at it, share this episode with a friend who you know it can bless today if you want to visit us as well on our websites, you can catch Claudine over at Claudine Sweeney dot com and Ashley at Mind over chaos dot com.

Our links are in the description. We also have some free resources there for you as well. So remember ladies, no matter what you are facing in life, it is never too late to rise up and shine and live your best life, mm hmm.