Believe Big Podcast

67-Kristi Gaultiere - Emotional and Spiritual Growth (part 2)

• Ivelisse Page and Kristi Gaultiere • Season 2 • Episode 67

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In this episode, we continue our discussion with Kristi Gaultiere about the importance of caring for our souls, specifically for emotional and spiritual healing.  For anyone facing a health challenge, like cancer, this episode is not to be missed!

Kristi and Ivelisse talk about 

  • the stages of grief
  • setting boundaries
  • creating a rule/rhythm of life
  • Lectio Divina
  • and encouraging a healthy balance between spiritual practices and daily living.

Don’t miss this concluding episode with Kristi and Ivelisse, and be prepared to care for your soul with love and kindness.

Connect with Kristi Gaultiere at Soul Shepherding:
https://www.soulshepherding.org/

Suggested Resource Links:


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Ivelisse Page:

Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page, and thanks for listening to the Believe Big Podcast, the show where we take a deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders, and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page and it's so great to be with you today. We are doing part two with our friend Kristi Gaultiere, who is an expert in leading people to understand and care for the health of their souls. She has co authored a new bestselling book with her husband called Journey of the Soul, a Practical Guide to Emotional and Spiritual Growth. Kristi is a doctor of psychology and has dedicated her life to serving Jesus. She has three grown children and is a grandmother of two. Her and Bill also record their own weekly podcast called Soul Talks and you all have to check it out. Welcome back to the show, Kristi.

Kristi Gaultiere:

Thank you so much, Ivelisse. So happy to be with you and your community again.

Ivelisse Page:

Well, I did not want to leave the episode that we left with last without asking you these next questions because we get a lot of questions from those in our community about how to really engage in healing our emotions and how closely it's tied to our spiritual health. You know, many times in this side of the cancer world, we're focused on all these integrative modalities to heal the physical person. But then there's this huge piece, this emotional side of healing that doesn't really fully get addressed. And it's equally important in healing the whole person. And so last time you were sharing about the stages that person goes through, whether in their emotional, in their spiritual development. And you share more in depth about that in your book Journey for the Soul. But I would love for you to start today'cause at a lot of individuals that we're working with and the patients that we're working with that are dealing with cancer are on this path, many of them of grief, of not understanding why, you know, asking the whys and being okay with that. So can you talk a little bit about the healing path of sadness and the steps of healthy grief to relieve the shame and the depression that many of those listening are experiencing?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Oh, so important, and we write about this in our latest book that just came out a couple of months ago, Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith, because we found over and over in our own life and in the work of people that we work with, that if we are repressing our emotions, and trying to distract ourselves from them that actually we really miss out on that healing and actually it can make us sick. It really affects our physical health. It affects our relationships. It gets in the way of intimacy. And so we have found that doing the grief work and really being emotionally honest about the sadness, the loss, the grief that we feel is so important for our healing. So many of us are familiar with Elizabeth Kübler Ross and her stages of grief, and we have drawn upon her work, but also expanded on it, because we find that actually those are phases of grief. We cycle in and out of them. We don't do them in a linear model. It's something that in our grief journeys, we're processing our emotions with a devastation, like a cancer diagnosis. We are at times going to be in denial and denial isn't always all bad. Defense mechanisms are God given. We need them for survival, but it's when we depend on them and over depend upon them, that they become very damaging and destructive. And so we, we write a lot about that in Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith, and the importance of being honest with ourselves, and with God and with another safe person who can hear us, who can listen to us with empathy. It's really key there. And then anger is another phase. It's okay to be angry about the cancer diagnosis. It's okay to wrestle with the anger of toxins you were exposed to that you couldn't control, or genetics that you receive that you had no control over, or the suffering that you're encountering, or the people that don't understand and maybe even well meaning we say things that are insensitive and hurtful. There's many different things to feel angry about with a cancer diagnosis and God is not at all offended by your anger. The psalmist we see over and over again was very honest with his anger at God. Even Job was, in the book of Job. And what did God say about Job? He spoke rightly, He said. He honors Job. And He restores Job. So we don't need to be afraid of that anger. We do need to be afraid of internalizing it. And of denying it. Because then it can make us very sick. Or it can, if we deny it, oftentimes it can explode in very destructive ways to self and others. So we want to be able to be honest about our anger, to process it, to look at it, to be able to share it in ways and express it in ways that are not destructive, but are healthy. And then as we do that it's very common that we'll feel depression, that deep sense of sadness, just no energy. That sense of ability of a loss of control that I don't have control over anything. I can't do anything. Just the deep work of feeling the grief and the sadness and the devastation that you're experiencing, being honest about that. That's courageous work to be honest and aware and to articulate that. And sometimes maybe it's hard for us, even especially if we are not used to being honest about our emotions or feeling our feelings, sometimes we'll isolate. And that can be a real danger that isn't helpful for our healing. We need to know we're not alone and we need to not be alone and we need ambassadors of Christ who can really mirror God's presence and minister to us. And then we've got the bargaining phase and that's where we're often are trying to because something like a cancer diagnosis is so disorienting and it feels so out of control and like such a desolation. We often are looking for some way of getting some sense of control again, some sense of safety and security again. And so that's what we're doing in bargaining. We're often trying to look at, well, maybe if I do this, or if only I'd done that, or if I start doing that, or if I could have done that, or if they would have done this, or we're just trying all these different ways to try to get some sense of orientation and control again. And that's very normal. And that can be helpful again to just the growing and self awareness and coming to understand growth in our spiritual, emotional health. A lot of that work is done in the bargaining. And then the acceptance is the last stage, but we can't get there without a sixth stage that has been more recently identified and that's a stage of meaning. We need to somehow come to a sense of meaning in our life and what's happening to us and in this cancer diagnosis. Is it all wasted? Is it all senseless suffering? We need to come to understand that no, that we have a Good Shepherd who's with us. He doesn't waste anything. Nothing is wasted. He's the one that works all things for good. We need to come to the understanding that our soul is eternal and that what we are experiencing in this journey with cancer actually is a part of our becoming more like Christ. We are, in this life, we are training to rule and reign with Christ in eternity. Our mentor Dallas Willard says we are unceasing, unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God's great universe. You are! And everything that happens in this life is a part of our training for that ruling and reigning. None of it is wasted. And so we need to understand that it's all meaningful. And it's temporary. It doesn't feel like it when you have not been sleeping or when you've been vomiting for days or when you're hooked up to chemo. It doesn't feel temporary. It feels like it's so long and the time goes so slow And it's so hard to endure and so we need the meaning of the overall our story and God's story, which we talk about in Journey of the Soul. So then finally, then we come to this acceptance, this place where we can be able to receive and be more returned to the peace and be able to experience some of the goodness of God and his grace is sustaining us and being enough for us even in the loss, even in the pain and suffering.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, that's one of the really great things that my spiritual director helped me throughout this last diagnosis was finding those graces through it. Yes, it was okay to ask all those questions and scratching my head as to how this could be possible and then finding those graces along the way and I think it's a sense of, feeling like you know God is there and not understanding it in the moment. And many times while we're going through something difficult, it's hard to see that. And so we just continue, as you're saying, to depend on Him to hold our hand, to keep walking us through, to get to the other side. And many times the answers are there, but sometimes they're not. What do you say to individuals who have gone through a cancer experience or are going through and then they still are like, I still don't understand why such a good God could allow something like this to happen. I don't understand the purpose or the meaning of this.

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yeah. And certainly have so much grace for you. Treat yourself for the gentleness and kindness of Christ in that. It is a process. I just lost my mom to cancer a few weeks ago and it was a two year journey. And even at the end, she would cycle back into again that wrestling with it, even though she was a woman of great faith, a great spiritual mentor and blessing to me. I so respect her. And it was such a privilege to walk that journey with her, even though it was so painful. But I just wanna normalize that that's okay. Your questions, your wrestling with that is not a problem for God, to bring that into your relationship with God, to be honest about that with God, to let people listen and empathize with you, receive their empathy for you and that is really, really important. And there are times when God doesn't answer our questions or our prayers in ways that we want. And in this life, we don't get that full understanding of it. I have a, what I call my do not understand file of things where they're just things, God, I don't understand this. I can't see the whole picture from the picture, from the part I can see, I can't make sense of it. I can't see your goodness in this. I can't see your love in this, but I still will choose to trust. And instead of looking at my circumstances and judging you based on my circumstances, will you give me your grace to be able to see my circumstances through the lens of what I know to be true about you, and your goodness and love? Will you give me the grace to be able to find things to be grateful for today, to be appreciate the little graces that you're giving today? Will you open my eyes and my soul and my spirit to respond and to not miss that?

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, that's such great advice. One of the things that you all share as well is that trying new experiences with God is an important part of how we heal emotionally and grow spiritually. Can you talk about that and maybe share an example?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yes. Well, it's so important. I shared last episode, many different ways of prayer that really are helpful. And also as we shared in the last episode, discipleship isn't one size fits all, so there's many different spiritual disciplines, experiences, exercises that we need at different stages. And so one that we have is an empathy prayer. We include this in our Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith book. But it's where we actually begin to just journal a prayer to God, starting out with what it is that we're feeling. All the emotional honesty of the devastation, of the pain, of the doubt, of the confusion, of the distrust. And then we are listening to the Lord and we're writing back what we think God might be saying to us. We're writing back His words of empathy to us for what we're experiencing. So it might look like this, Ivelisse, I see the pain that you're in, in this newest diagnosis, I see your disappointment over that. I see your devastation that really, again, God, I have to face this again. I see your fatigue. You've been working so hard. You've been so strong. You've been so courageous. And this just feels like a big blow. And I'm putting words in your mouth, I don't know at all if this is accurate to you, I'm just imagining what it might have felt like for you, but that's what you're doing, you're writing to yourself. You're putting words, how God might be responding with empathy for you, how He's attuning to you, how He's present to you in this, where He's mirroring back to you what He's heard from you, or maybe what you even haven't had the words for. That validation of how big this experience is for you, how significant it is. Often there's this very significant, something very personally significant that God will mirror back to us, that He sees and understands because He's with us from before we were born and sees the whole picture of our lives, understands us so intimately, so personally. But we're having this conversation with God, where we're telling him what we feel, what we think, what we're struggling with, where we're hurting, and then we're receiving from him and giving words to His empathy, his validation, his seeing the significance of it. And then we're listening again with God. What will you reveal to me what you're doing in my life right now? What a next step for me is right now, an invitation. So to listen to him, and we usually need to do this in a time that's silent. We need to set some boundaries on our life to push back all the distractions, all the ways we try to self medicate, to calm ourselves, or to try to help ourself get some comfort, to let ourselves really be comforted by the one who is the eternal comforter and health helper. And oftentimes that will come with maybe a scripture verse that will come to mind.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, and that is just such an important tool. I was tearing up as you were saying those things because it spoke to my soul so deeply. Those were some of the things that I had written down, but it is so healing. And, I really feel it's important to also address. You know, I think in life we, everyone in general, men and women, but, I think sometimes when we're in such a busy state in our lives, whether it's in our work life or in our family life, we can experience things that are hard and we're so busy that we don't take time to tend to our disappointments and our grief, and then we keep pushing on, and then all these things keep being buried. It keep getting buried, and it's so important that we remove these boulders. per se, that have been buried for so long. And it's like peeling a layer of an onion and just slowly finding more and more ways. And, I discovered and a lot of people sure can understand that there's this hurry sickness in our society, right? That we don't have enough margin in our lives, whether you're running from one doctor's appointment to the other, or you're running your kids from one event to the next, or at work. So, you share that when this happens, that our ability to love is compromised, like listening, like doing a kindness, offering a compliment, forgiving, and even praying for someone. What are some practical ways that those that are listening today can slow their pace so they can truly hear from God and love others better?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yeah, such an important question. Well, we, we need to learn to set boundaries. And so Jesus set boundaries and we can take a vision from him. Bill and I included a Bible study on Jesus setting boundaries in the book, Your Best Life in Jesus' Easy Yoke, where we see the way that here he is, the Messiah, the Son of God. He only has three years of active ministry on earth to establish the church and save the world. And yet he withdraws to be alone with his father, to seek first his kingdom and righteousness like he instructs us to. Jesus does everything he asks us to. We see him do this. He's the first disciple. And so we want to study his life and learn from him. He set boundaries where he left towns full of sick people in need of healing because he knew that he needed to maintain his intimacy with his father, in order to be able to do even one more miracle, or one more thing that the Father asked him to do. Jesus says in Matthew 11: 28 30, he says, you know, I only do what the Father tells me to do, and that's his translation. How does he know what the Father tells him to do? He sets boundaries to protect that relationship, to nurture that relationship, to set time to turn off the TV and turn off even the book, even the good podcast. And to spend that time to make space to be with him intentionally, to listen to him, to worship the father, to practice his own rhythm, healthy rhythm of life that we see him practicing his scripture. We need a rhythm of life that's healthy, that's sustainable. That's life giving for us.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, and I love that some of the examples that you guys shared in Your Best Life in Jesus' Easy Yoke and it's something that is so simple and many times we as adults forget how to be childlike. And, some of the examples that you guys mentioned were to skip with Jesus, to sing to God like a child, to heart Jesus in the sand if you're near the sand and you can draw with your finger. And, I did take that advice and I think my neighbors might have thought I was crazy. One day I was skipping along the neighborhood instead of my normal walk and I died laughing. I was just laughing at myself. But, It is so healing. we forget how to be playful. We forget how to live life outside of our callings many times. And it's so important to set those boundaries, like you're saying, so that we can have a full, rich life. And so how does that differ from what you guys call rules of life?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yes. Well, a rule of life or a rhythm of life, this is just coming up, letting the Lord lead you into a unique rhythm of life, which would be a combination of the spiritual disciplines, which in the last episode we talked about our medicines for your soul. So for instance, in your rhythm of life to add in that laughing, skipping, playing with Jesus. Jesus was joyful and he exuded joy in his life and he welcomed the children and he joked with his disciples. I mean, it's funny he told Peter to go get a fish with a coin in it for his taxes. And laughter is healing. So, to be able to participate in a unique combination of spiritual disciplines or medicines for this stage of your life, this season that you need that are healing. And it might be that one that we talk about in Easy Yoke where you go out and you skip down the street and you sing, I'm a disciple Jesus loves, I'm a disciple Jesus loves, because we need to remind ourselves of that, our true identity of that. And some of the best spiritual disciplines aren't, you won't find them in a spiritual disciplines book. For me, one of the best spiritual disciplines in my rhythm life God invited me to was to float on a raft of warm water and meditate and pray through 1 Corinthians 13 that I'd memorized, every aspect of God's love. Lord, thank you that your love for me is patient. Why am I not trusting that? Oh yeah, my mom was impatient with me. Will you help me? Will you heal me in this area? Will you help me to be still and patient just to lay here and trust your love to support me, to be enough for me, to hold me, to receive your patient love for me? Even in my failure, I did that to each of the attributes of 1 Corinthians 13 because I needed that greater internalization of God's love. That's a spiritual discipline. A spiritual discipline could be anything you do with Jesus, that He, His Spirit, leads you to do to help you grow in your intimacy with Him and in the health of your soul, the soul He created and loves.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. And one thing that I think is really important, that you mentioned as well in the book is that to make sure that it doesn't become legalistic. I can tend to merge on the side of the A type personality and checking things off my list and making sure I do this or that. And so a rule of life isn't legalistic. It's just creating boundaries, and setting practices that you start your day or you end your day or that are part of your day so that they bring you life. So,

Kristi Gaultiere:

That's right. They're a get to, not a have.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes!

Kristi Gaultiere:

And Yes! And we call these graces. They are a grace. They are a gift. They're not a work. And we can slip into an earning mentality, into a cycle of works. And we want to live in a cycle of grace, which we write about in Journey of the Soul. The difference between living a life in a rhythm or a cycle of works where I'm really depending upon myself, versus a cycle of grace where I'm responding and receiving from God, very different rhythms.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. One other practice, that is a great tool and I would love for you to share and I, again, I heard it first through your books and it's Lectio Divina. Can you share with our listeners what that is and how one would do that? It was very powerful.

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yes, we do have this in our books. We also have Lectio Divina guides as well as the breath prayer guides, which are separate resources to, to go through many different scriptures. But Lectio Divina is just a way to really get God's word through you. Don't know about you, but too often when I read the Bible, I find myself waiting to get through it, to check it off my list, to get through the portion. And it doesn't get within me. Lectio Divina is a way that helps me to really listen to the Word, the living Word, capital W, Jesus, in his Word. And Lectio Divina is just, it just means divine reading in Latin. It's nothing mystical. It's a practice that helps us to slow ourselves down and to read a portion of scripture and to listen to an invitation from the Lord for you each day. In a small passage, you're listening for a word or a phrase that stands out to you, that the Holy Spirit's drawing your attention to, and you're just turning that over and over again in your mind. And then you're paying attention to what you feel in response to this word, and you're journaling about that, and having a little prayer conversation with the Lord about what is stirring in you and your emotions. And then you're listening for an invitation. What do you have to say to me in this scripture personally today? And it's a wonderful practice. I've done Lectio Divina through all four of the gospels. Just a little couple of verses at a time. I've done it through every meditation in our Lectio Divina guides. There's over 70 of those, key, kind of electric scriptures that are so powerful and unique and tailored to unique needs or circumstances or temptations or trials in our life.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, I'm excited to get those. I just recently purchased them and I'm going to be giving them away as gifts and, we will also put that link in our show notes for anyone who's interested in having a guide to walk through that process on how that works. And I can't believe our episode is almost over, our part two. But as we wrap up, what final thoughts or encouragement can you share with our listeners, particularly those who are facing a health challenge like cancer and seeking a deeper connection with their faith?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yeah, well, I just first of all want to applaud all of you for tuning in and joining Ivelisse in this ministry of Believe Big, not doing it alone, not isolating. No, we need each other. We're called to follow Christ together and learning how you can steward well the soul God's entrusted to you and you're doing that here, and she's leading you so well in that. So I wanna thank you for responding to God's invitation to you to be a part of this ministry and to learn, and to grow and to venture into trying some new things, new practices that God is having you to grow in. I would also encourage you to really pray about what is the next step that God's calling you to? Is it to engage with one of these resources to go deeper with that? Is it to reach out to a spiritual director, which you can do at soulshepherding.org? Or others, if you have someone locally that you know to meet with, but if you don't, you can meet with them over Zoom through Soul Shepherding. Somebody who could be really praying for you. You need somebody who's pouring into you, somebody who's praying for you, somebody who's ministering to you because you're in a season of need and there's no shame in that. And so my prayer for you is that you would receive from God in this season, more than you ever have in your entire life, letting him pour his love deeper into the depths. of your soul, which he loves so very much.

Ivelisse Page:

Well, that was so beautifully said. Thank you, Kristi, so much for joining us again today. Thank you for the work that you all do to really help us all to heal in all aspects of our life and just appreciate, you know, the work that you're doing every day. So thank you.

Kristi Gaultiere:

Thank you. I am a wounded healer. I'm on the journey too, and it's my joy to overflow what God's given me. Thank you.

Ivelisse Page:

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