Impossible Beauty

Shame is that all-encompassing, embodied, sinking feeling that we are wrong or bad. It’s not just a sense of guilt over something we did, but the wrongness of who we are. And shame has all kinds of occasions to creep in; the perceived wrongness of our body, our relationships status, our parenting, our career, and the list goes on. In today’s episode, Jasmine Holmes invites us to consider the influ...

Cleere Cherry Reaves had an experience that changed how she viewed everything. When Cleere’s son was born three months prematurely, Cleere and her husband watched as their child fought for his life, developed, and began to thrive. In today’s episode, Cleere tells us the lessons she learned from that experience, how her faith was transformed, and why it inspired her to write the children’s book, Th...

Amanda Held Opelt got a lesson in grief she never wanted. After a series of miscarriages, the loss of her grandma, and then her beloved sister, Amanda found solace in an unexpected place, in exploring ancient grief rituals in practices. In her first book, A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing , Amanda explores how such ancient grief rituals and practices can be a vessel...

In today’s episode, K.J. Ramsey reminds me that “We are held by this web of love,” the love of God and the love of others. Those words and others like it shifted something in me. Instead of having to nervously earn or find God’s love, it is a reality that always surrounds me. A reality I can rest in. A reality we can rest in. K.J. Ramsey is a trauma-informed licensed professional counselor and is...

The Sunday Herald calls today’s guest, Jessica DeFino, “the woman the beauty industry fears.” That’s because Jessica, a beauty reporter and beauty culture critic, has seen the inner workings of the beauty industry and didn’t like it. More than that, Jessica now spends her time dismantling beauty standards, debunking marketing myths, and exploring how beauty culture impacts people — physically, psy...

How do we live life fully alive? For Sandhya Oaks, living fully alive entails being courageous enough to go to places of brokenness and shame, so we might find healing. While trauma or hurt stunts our capacity for fullness of life, healing leads to an increased ability to love and live abundantly. Sandhya Oaks is a Ministry Leader, Spiritual Director, leads Kintsugi workshops, and does Story Work....

We are approaching Lent, a forty-day period of preparation for celebrating Jesus’ resurrection at Easter. It’s a time rich with spiritual significance. It also happens to be a time when the ideas of self-deprivation and fasting can get emphasized in faith-based circles. The tricky part is that both diet culture messages and faith-based messages at times explicitly and implicitly emphasize food res...

In a world where beauty is so often equated with thinness and weight loss with health, willpower, and virtue, Intuitive Eating gives us a different framework-one that emphasizes the beauty of body diversity and makes food freedom possible. In today’s episode, I have the privilege of speaking with one of the co-creators of Intuitive Eating, Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDS-S. Elyse is a nutrition therapi...

In a world of selfies, social media, and self-promotion, the virtue of humility isn’t getting much airtime these days. In today’s episode, I have the privilege of discussing this all-important virtue with Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn. Richard Foster is the founder of Renovaré Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation, a nonprofit that helps people in becoming more like Jesus. He is also the a...

In a world filled with both beauty and brokenness, perhaps the greatest brokenness we experience is death. On today’s episode, we tackle this brokenness head on with author, Sarah Berger. When Sarah Berger’s nineteen-year-old son went to heaven in an inexplicable single-car accident, Sarah found herself plunged into deep grief. Having journaled her experiences in the wake of that event, Sarah shar...

Life is all about connection. As humans we seem to thrive most when we are deeply connected to God, other people, ourselves, and our sense of purpose in the world. On today’s episode, I talk with Beth Davis all about deepening our connection with God, other people, and even ourselves. Beth Davis is the Director of Ministry Advancement for an international sisterhood of women called Blessed Is She....

Every year, when Christmas rolls around, I try to wrap my mind and heart around the significance of Jesus coming to earth. The far-reaching impact of God coming in his fullness to restore and redeem the entire world is a hard one to fully grasp. In today’s episode, author and Bible teacher, Hannah Anderson, helps us explore one often-overlooked aspect of the Christmas story, inviting us to take a...

Have you ever been stunned by a night sky or deeply moved by the expansiveness of the universe? If so, today’s episode is for you. Dr. Deb Haarsma is an astronomer, experienced research scientist, and the president of BioLogos. She has studied large galaxies, galaxy clusters, the curvature of space, and the expansion of the universe using telescopes around the world and in orbit. Dr. Haarsma compl...

Dr. Chinwé Williams is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), the founder and owner of Meaningful Solutions Counseling & Consulting, and an Executive Coach. She also recently co-authored the book, "Seen: Healing Despair and Anxiety in Kids and Teens Through the Power of Connection." Dr. Williams’ clinical expertise lies in the areas of stress/anxiety management, trauma recovery, the intersection...

Jennifer Tucker leaned into breath prayer out necessity. Amid anxiety and a family crisis, it became a lifeline. Jennifer Tucker is a mom, artist, and graphic designer, primarily working for Ann Voskamp. Jenn is also the author of Breath as Prayer: Calm Your Anxiety, Focus Your Mind, and Renew Your Soul. As Jenn puts it, “I create art to remind my own soul that God is with us, that we are loved an...

Justin McRoberts has a way with words. He has a way of breathing new life into familiar topics and inviting us to out of the box thinking that inspires the mind and heart. As Justin puts it, he creates to provide language for the process of faith and life. In official terms, Justin is an author, musician, host of The @Sea Podcast, retreat leader, and leads workshops on the creatives process. He li...

We live in a world fraught with disconnection and distraction. In today’s episode and in her book, The Connected Leader, Montana-based psychotherapist and author, Karen Hardwick, shares all about how to re-connect with our true selves, our purpose in the world, our connection with God, and with other people. Karen Hardwick is a clinically and spiritually trained psychotherapist-turned-leadership c...

This is a big week for Tori Hope Petersen. On October 18th Tori’s memoir entitled "Fostered: One Woman’s Powerful Story of Finding Faith and Family through Foster Care" will release. Then this coming weekend, Tori will be hosting the Survivors Thriving and Writing Workshop in North Carolina. It is Tori’s desire to help survivors of human trafficking, foster care, and abuse tell their story; to kno...

Liz Wienke wanted to help others find healing in their relationship with food and body image in the same way she had. Her own journey of finding intuitive eating changed her life and she wanted to help others break free from diet culture. Liz Wienke is a therapist, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, and a fellow Minnesotan, working at Venture Therapy in White Bear Lake. In today’s episode, Liz...

After spending a decade as a radio personality in markets that included Las Vegas, Cara Whitney found herself longing for the simple life. Having grown up on a cattle farm in Northern Wisconsin, she found her way back to the country, this time a horse farm in Nebraska. That is where Cara now lives, along with her husband Dan, known as “Larry the Cable Guy.” Cara is the author of the bestselling bo...

I am guessing we all want to be healthy, right? In today’s episode, I talk with licensed clinical psychologist and eating disorder specialist, Dr. Colleen Reichmann all about the trends of wellness culture and clean eating. Dr. Reichmann helps us see how, through the lens of diet culture, our ideas on health and wellness may be a bit warped. In addition to being a licensed clinical psychologist an...

On today’s show, I welcome Dr. Curt Thompson back to the podcast. If you remember Curt from Episode 33, you already know that the conversation ahead is a special one. Dr. Curt Thompson is a psychiatrist, author, speaker, and the host of The Being Known Podcast. Curt’s work largely lies at the intersection of interpersonal neurobiology and spiritual formation, connecting our intrinsic desire to be...

Manda Carpenter is an author, speaker, advocate, and the co-host of A Longer Table Podcast, alongside her husband, Eric. Manda has written two books, the most recent being Soul Care to Save Your Life. Manda is very passionate, about “Seeing people own their full identity and do their inner work,” as she puts it. And that is exactly the kind of beautiful work she models and invites others into in h...

On today’s episode, I talk with Registered Dietitian, Dylan Murphy, all about breaking free from societal lies and ideals around beauty and body image. Dylan received her Food Science and Human Nutrition Degree from Clemson University, completed her Dietetic Residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and has provided individualized nutrition coaching for hundreds of clients. Her specialty...

Today’s episode is a big one. Today we are celebrating 100 episodes with Bob Goff. Back in Episode four, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bob at Dream Big at Magnolia in Waco, Texas. It was actually at that event that I decided to take the official plunge into podcasting and Bob helped me get things rolling. For those who may be new to Bob, he calls himself a “recovering lawyer,” is a New York T...