Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Genius Podcast.

My name is Karen Doyle, your host and founder of The Genius Project,

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I lost my voice last week.

My kids were absolutely cheering, so it's on its way back.

It's still not a hundred percent.

So I hope you can bear with me with my raspy voice this

week on the Genius Podcast.

On this week's episode of the Genius Podcast, we're going to be talking about

a topic that I think relates to all women.

No matter what age, state, season of life you find yourself in, I'm sure there's

going to be something in here for you.

One of the things that I'm noticing in my coaching, the one-on-one coaching that I'm

doing with women, but also in the master.

Groups is a recurring theme in the lives of women, and this theme, or this

pain point in the lives of women really centers around their whole area of

confidence, how they're showing up for themselves, and this idea of self-worth

and their self-image, and how this then I guess, shapes the landscape of

their lives in terms of the results they're getting, how they're showing

up, the quality of their relationships with others, and the quality.

Of their relationship with themselves.

So often in life, damage happens in this area of self-worth in

our younger years, and somehow we carry that throughout our lives.

And so to help me unpack this theme today, I am joined by Leah Darrow.

Now Leah is the author of the book, the Other Side of Beauty.

In her book, Leah really exposes the lies that we are sold as women from a very

young age about our value, our beauty, and our worth as women and as humans.

And she does these.

By taking a look at what real beauty is and the kind of beauty

that the world actually needs, and the world actually longs for.

Now, she's an expert in this area because she lived and breathed and worked

in the fashion industry as a model.

She draws on hers.

Experience as America's Next Top model and working as a

fashion model in this industry.

And her insights are quite powerful these days.

Leah is living with her husband Ricky, and their six beautiful children on a

farm in the central part of America.

Leah is an author as.

Speaker and a coach, and I know that today you're just gonna love the insights

that she's going to share in terms of how we can reclaim a sense of our

self-worth as women, a sense of redefining what beauty really is so that we can

actually live in freedom and wholeness.

In Christ.

I really hope and pray that you enjoy my conversation with Leah Darrow.

Well, Leah, welcome to the Genius Podcast.

It's wonderful to have you joining us all the way from the United States.

You're in central USA and we're in Australia, and it's just

such a joy and an honor to have you joining us on the podcast.

So welcome.

Thank you.

I cannot wait to chat about our topic today, and I'm so happy to be with

you, so I'm ready to get started.

Excellent.

Well, thanks so much.

We, I want you to tell us before we dive in a little bit about

yourself, but in particular, you're based in the middle of the us.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

And I think we connected on Instagram.

I was following you and you really captivated me when you just first moved to

this farm that your husband and you bought and it came time to eat the chickens.

And I was, wait, I was watching your Instagram stories over a few days.

Just this process of you coming to terms with and, and showing

everybody what actually is involved.

But this farm's been such an adventure for you both.

Can you share a little bit about it?

Because it's been great to.

The journey unfold.

Yeah.

So yeah, the, the day we had to butcher our, uh, our chickens was quite the day.

That was a very big day on social media for me on the ig.

I think I lost a few thousand followers, but I also gained quite a bit because I

think people were like, what is she doing?

Or, this is crazy.

I'm gonna keep watching.

Yeah.

Either way.

So Ricky and I have.

This dream for a really long time.

I mean, we've been married 10 years and probably since the very beginning we

always played around with this idea of like, wouldn't it be great when we have

kids, or after we had kids like to raise them on a farm or raise them with lots

of land, we kind of, we didn't really think about the farm piece immediate.

We just thought it would be nice to have a big yard.

And so we bought a house with a big yard, um, outside the city and then.

That big yard just kind of felt really small after, you

know, 2, 3, 4 or five kids.

And after kid number six, we were like, maybe we should actually, you know, double

down on this dream that we have to get a farm and, and kind of just go for it.

And so anyway, uh, we ended up doing that.

We bought an 80 acre farm, um, in southern Missouri, here in the United States, and

we decided, We were just going to do it.

Sometimes the best way to learn is just to try and, yep.

And just, you know, just keep going.

Just keep trying and trying and trying.

And so that's what we've been doing.

So we dived deep into this area of homesteading and farm life.

And so, um, yes, we have like this really sweet old farmhouse.

We have 80 acres and we have lots of farm animals now.

We have cows and pigs and chickens and meat birds.

Meat birds are the ones that we actually will.

To butcher, and then we do that ourself as well.

So we, so as you as, yeah.

That, that was what I was astounded by.

Yeah.

So, uh, I remember the day Ricky came to me and I knew it was happening.

I knew it was going to happen at some point, but at this particular day last

year, Ricky's like, Today's the day.

I was like, what do you, what do you mean?

He's like, we're butchering the chickens today.

Ricky had previously made, he like made me watch YouTube videos in bed

at night together of like, this is what you're going to have to do, Leah.

Okay, we have to do this together.

And I was like, learning.

Through YouTube about how to butcher a chicken, and I will save you the details.

You can go on my Instagram, it's a highlight saved under the farm life.

Um, highlight and you can watch the process there.

But I made it.

I did something I never thought I would do.

And I, you know, I'm better for it, I guess.

I don't know.

Good on you.

Well, it's been lovely watching it, and it is such an adventure and mm-hmm.

Just watching your life unfold.

You've had so many different adventures over the years, haven't you?

You've really had quite an expansive career and dived into lots of

different areas, but I'm wondering if we can go back today, our topic.

That we're going to be discussing is really around this idea of beauty as

women, and it's an area I think that we struggle with from little girls

right up to elderly women I've met that do struggle in this area of just

this deep desire to be beautiful, to be found captivating and also.

I guess the link to confidence and self-worth, and so that's what we're

going to really unpack and dive into.

But I know this has been a personal journey for you as well as your

work with women in this area.

Can you take us back, I guess, to your early years where I guess your ex.

Experience with beauty and the beauty industry because you were on America's

Next Top model, you were a fashion model, um, and so you were really caught up

in that industry, that secular world.

I'm just wondering if you can take us back and just give us, I guess, a little

bit of an overview about what that was like for you and then that moment

where you sort of had that awakening to your inner beauty as God's beloved.

Yeah.

So there has been, uh, there's, that's quite the journey when

it comes to the word beauty.

Beauty is such a loaded word.

Yeah, it is.

So everyone has a different understanding of beauty when they hear that.

And maybe beauty is a word that triggers you negatively.

You know, maybe it's something where you automatically wanna roll your eyes

or maybe you automatically feel less than, or you automatically start feeling

imposter syndrome, or you automatically start, you know, being more drawn to it.

Like, yes, I want more of that.

How can I get it?

And it becomes, you know, very, um, consumer and.

Beauty is, again, this word that carries a lot of meaning.

And for me, I remember thinking about that word beauty and putting

beauty into this really tight little box of what that meant.

And from me and my experience growing up, it was, uh, people, strangers

walking up to me, um, you know, at the mall or, you know, while I was out

shopping with my family or friends.

And somebody would just randomly say something like, oh, Well, you're

pretty, you should be a model.

Okay.

And that's just kind of like the statement.

And I remember hearing this from a few people, and these were like, these were

from perfect strangers, and this was not, some people might think, um, like,

oh, that maybe that made you feel good.

It it for me.

It didn't.

It was just like, automatically I was targeted as like somebody saw something

in me and that's all they saw, and then that's all that I could do with it.

Mm.

So it, I, you know, I listened to this and I heard it a few times, um, and it kind of

began to make me believe that beauty was something that was very materialistic and

also it was viable and it was physical.

And I think that's the thing about beauty for many of us, is that we

think that there are these three, there are these three things.

I, I talk about this a lot in the book that I wrote called The Other Side

of Beauty and Beauty has been really.

Unfortunately distorted into these three elements that it's, that it's

just physical, that it's also viable.

Right.

Um, and so, and, uh, materialistic and so when beauty is, is kind of brought into

that very narrow focus, then there's only a few things that you can do with it.

And, um, And what you should do with it.

So for me, that's just kind of what it felt like.

It felt like, uh, because other people were saying that maybe about

me, that nothing else about me was.

Valuable.

Hmm.

Yeah.

And so with beauty, we oftentimes, especially as women, um, women just

are beautiful by, by how they're made.

Truly.

I believe they're just, I, I think God has made women to be, in some

ways an ambassador of his beauty.

Not that men don't have a role to play at all, but women in particular, um, Women

have a very, very particular role of being ambassadors of the beauty of God.

And so with that, um, and of course, you know, the devil, knowing that evil,

knowing that there's also a distortion in that too, that's really taken out.

And so for women, and I know for me as well, you know, I looked at beauty and

I looked at, I saw that as something that I tied my value to and my worth to.

Mm-hmm.

And so, You know, when you hit your wagon of your, you know, validation and your

worth and you know your identity and you hitch it to beauty, and of course beauty

is being hitched to this definition of the world and not of God, it's gonna take

you down a path that's not super great.

And that's what I did.

I mean, I was on that train, right?

And so it looked like for me, I mean, I chased after it.

I chased after the beauty, I chased after validation.

I chased after worth.

And I did get.

From time to time, and I have these moments, these flashes where I have

the validation and I have the worst.

But the problem is, is that those, those are flashes in a pan, and there was

these long stretches in between them that were very dark and, uh, where I

felt like I was nobody because nobody was looking at me and I wa I had, didn't

have any worth because I didn't get the modeling job and someone else got it.

Um, and I had no value because I was, I did not think that I was beautiful at all.

Even if I got a job and someone said that I was good enough to have that

job or to model for that clothing company, I still didn't believe them.

Uh, and so that's what happened.

I mean, I auditioned for America's Next Top Model.

I was on that reality TV show.

I stayed in New York.

I continued modeling, and for me, everything kind of broke down when

I was living in New York modeling for major clothing companies.

I was in New York Fashion Week and doing all of all of that stuff that every

fashion model, you know, you know, tries to attain in their career and dreams.

And I was in the middle.

You just, I was in the middle.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

It's, I mean, I remember at one point, oh my gosh, I remember at one point

I was in the, I was still filming America's Next Top Model, and I remember

Tyra took all of us up on this roof.

This very high building in Times Square and she, we were really,

really high and she was pointing to this billboard in Times Square and

was so close she could just see this woman, this model on this billboard.

And um, she was like, if you work hard enough mm-hmm.

If you want it bad enough, you can be her.

And for me, I saw that girl on that billboard and I'm like, that's.

That is, did he believe that at that point?

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

I believed it.

Of course I believed it.

I had one of my fashion, you know, icons telling me this, a

model right there talking to me.

I was on her reality TV show and you know, we hold these, we hold certain

people up, you know, and you get too close to your idols and you little.

Soon let you down, trust me.

And, um, that, you know, that's what it was for me.

I was just like, I wanted to be her.

I wanted, and you know, I think that is ultimately a part of this

conversation too, is that we have this certain definition of beauty

that's truly not based in reality and definitely not based in the word of God.

But on top of that, that distorted view of beauty has with it a goal,

a dream, and a plan for your.

That you may not want.

Mm-hmm.

And for me, I was living other people's dream for me because

of my distorted view of beauty.

Yeah.

And it was something that all came crashing down actually in the middle

of a fashion photo shoot, which is kind of ironic where, you know, in, in

a sense, this word beauty was really being broken down and being built up

right in the middle of the fashion.

You know, like one of the fashion, you know, area.

Just areas of the world in New York City, and it was in the middle of

a fashion photo shoot where I ended up walking out, um, where I had a

moment where I just knew that God was speaking to my heart and I decided

to slowly start rebuilding my life.

And I decided that I had been living other people's dreams for me.

I had been accepting what beauty is from other people, and I, I just

handed over my, you know, dignity.

I handed over my, my, my value and my identity and my worth to other

people who did not care about me.

And that made me very angry.

And it was a really good thing for.

To get that angry.

And I think that there's a righteous anger, there's like an anger that we

as Christians should, you know, allow ourself to feel and not just try to be so

passive and like, know everything's fine.

I'm gonna be, you know, peace at all times.

But I was angry that I allowed my life to unfold the way that it did.

And granted I wasn't passing the buck like it, it was me.

It's my fault I made these choices.

Yeah.

But I decided.

I'm not gonna do that anymore.

No.

And so, and it's been caught up in a cycle, don't you?

Like it's a cycle that sweeps you up, I think.

And so while we, we definitely have agency over our own lives, I

think when we're young and we're vulnerable, we're very vulnerable to

the, to getting swept up in a cycle.

And, and getting on that treadmill because once you start spinning, I liked

what you said, you know, it's viable.

Beauty is viable.

And so once we start, like we're really big with my daughters just on

when you can wear makeup or when you could have nail polish and because

there's certain milestones you are not quite ready for, and once you start it

becomes this treadmill that it's very hard to put the brakes on that I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It, it, there's, there's so many pieces to that, so many layers to that.

Um, It's also about the voices that you allow to speak to you.

Yeah.

You know, and as well as other elements of beauty too, but like

what influences do you allow to hold and take root in your life?

Yeah.

And we have, um, this beautiful, beautiful ability to choose

or not choose those influence.

To a certain degree.

And so I think that at some point for me, I just, you know, after kinda

getting angry, um, and then realizing, okay, so what am I gonna do with this?

You know, what am I gonna do with this?

Like, anger?

And I was like, okay, we're gonna be productive.

We're going to choose better.

When you know better, you choose better.

And I was like, And I began slowly rebuilding, um, myself with the Lord and

also rebuilding and rehabilitating that word beauty and what the power of beauty

can actually do in your life, um, with the Lord, you know, at the center of it.

And so, yeah, there's, it's stepping off of that treadmill.

It's stepping off of, of just like letting it go and being like, no.

No, no, I'm not.

I'm, I'm gonna start choosing my life.

I'm gonna start living as an active agent in my life as somebody who, um, will use

the power of God in my life to choose.

Uh, the way that is more in line with his will versus, you know,

the will of the, of the world.

Absolutely.

And I think we sometimes don't realize that.

I think we often go through life and we feel like we're a victim to our

circumstances, that life's just happening to us, that we don't have any control.

And I remember a couple of years ago, COVID hit and we've been through a

rough couple of years, but my friend in the US she said, actually, Karen,

Far more power and control over the circumstances than you actually realize.

And it was such a, it was a hard thing to hear because I just wanted

someone to say, oh, it's so hard.

But to take agency, to take ownership and to realize that we're called to

co-create our lives with the lawn.

So we actually are, as you said, called to be an active participant so we can choose.

I posted a quote on Instagram this week by Henry Newan.

He just said, Joy doesn't happen by accident.

We choose it.

And even in the most difficult circumstances of our lives, we

have this capacity to choose.

It's a God-given gift, the intellect, the will, and, and you and I both

do a lot of work around coaching women in this, and I'd love to dive

into that in a little bit because.

There's some very practical things I think that women need to learn because

we grow up often not learning these skills and these tools to navigate life.

But um, before we do that, can you take me back?

Just let me know.

How old were you when you had that moment in New York City?

Geez, I was 25, I believe I was 25 when I had my, you know, Conversion reversion

back to my faith, back to Christ.

And yeah, and I'm 43 now, so it's, it's been a little while.

Yeah.

Because our life is very much split with seasons, isn't it?

I look back to my late teens and early twenties, and there is this

sense of striving for validation or trying to craft an identity, I guess.

And even if we're living faith, if we're away from faith.

If we're living faith, I think that's just a universal struggle.

People in their late teens, their early twenties.

I, I find in my forties now, it's quite a nice season because I feel

really comfortable in my skin now.

And it's more about contribution, how we can serve.

Mm-hmm.

With what we've been given.

So can you speak for a moment, I guess, to the younger women listening, the

women who are single, who are struggling, I guess, with this idea of beauty?

And there is very much that link between beauty and self-worth and confidence.

Can you speak into that for, I guess, the younger, the single

women who are really battling with poor self-worth and self-image?

Well, if you're battling it and if it's a struggle and if it's difficult,

uh, that's a good sign for the record.

So if that's you, that's.

Because if you're not at all, especially at that age, I would, I

would probably ask a lot more questions like, are you doing all right?

Like, because that's kind of the time where we are.

God kind of gives us that space and that time of our life to.

Kind of work those things out.

And you though peop, you know, when we are in our late teens and in our twenties,

we're really targeted completely on social media and every form of it to really start

to question our identity and who we are and our worth and beauty and all of that.

So the fact that if you are struggling and if it is challenging, I would

say number one, that's a really good.

That's a good sign that it shows that you're actually doing something or

you're disturbed by the incongruence of maybe what you're feeling or

what, or what's really going on.

So either, either way, that's a great place to start is if it's

like, yeah, this is a struggle.

That's a great thing.

Paul talks about this all the time in scripture about there being a struggle,

a thorn in his side, the battle, all the things, all those things.

He talks about putting on the armor of God.

That means there is a battle.

So that's typically a great place to be.

You know, another thing I would like to mention too for, for

those who are in that stage of.

And they're struggling of what's going on.

And how I can be more confident is that confidence is

keeping promises to yourself.

Mm-hmm.

You gain confidence by really keeping your word to yourself.

So when we talk about confidence and beauty, um, I don't, I, I,

I'm not, not so sure about that.

It's more of just like confidence in who you are in your identity, and

once you have that, you start seeing yourself the way that you should, which.

You know that you are beautifully made.

I mean, Psalm 1 39 tells you right there.

This is a great, um, affirmation that I say to myself all the time, and I tell

everybody else to say this as well, but Psalm 1 39 says, I praise you, Lord, for

I am wonderfully and beautifully made.

I mean, or wonderfully and fearfully made something like that.

But the point is, is that you're wonderfully made.

You're beautifully made.

I mean, the Psalms tell us that now.

How do you feel that though?

Right?

And that comes from confidence.

And confidence is not just someone saying, oh, you're pretty, and

then you like believing it.

Confidence is actually you keeping your word to yourself and whatever

it is you're doing in life.

So when you set the alarm the next, you know tonight to wake up the next

morning, whatever it is, do you, do you wake up when you say to yourself,

you're gonna wake up at that time?

I don't care what time you.

But it starts with these really small things.

And when you create more confidence in yourself, you see

the beauty that's already there.

Yeah.

Because you look at yourself and you know, you've kept your word to yourself.

And sometimes that's the hardest thing.

And sometimes the, what we fight and what we battle most is really within ourself.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and so a lot of, there's a lot of, um, There's a lot of

conversations, uh, you know, as of late about, you know, bullying and

anti-bullying, and I think they're really good conversations and I love them.

I was very much affected in my grade school and even in my high school years,

wait, um, by a bully, a couple bullies who really had a negative impact on my life.

So I unders.

And deeply, I do the need for that.

But I wanna just remind, um, especially listeners who are in that,

you know, that young adult stage is that sometimes we have to realize

that we are the bully to ourselves.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And so that internal voice that you have, right, right.

That internal dialogue, those words that you say to yourself that you

would never say to anybody else, but you say them to yourself, like that

is the bully that you need to stop.

Mm.

Yeah.

That's such a, I love that analogy actually, because when you say

that, I mean, as women we have this heart that's protective, right?

We wanna, if we see someone being bullied, it's instinctual that we will step in

to protect the person being bullied.

Yes.

And I think what you are touching on there is so important.

It's a great visual analogy that we actually need to step in for ourselves.

And, and protect ourselves.

So Leah, working, I know that you do a lot of coaching with women and I'm

finding in my coaching, one thing that keeps coming up, it's a recurring

theme in so many women's lives.

It doesn't matter if they're 16, 20.

I have a woman who's in her seventies actually, and she's still

battling with this, but this idea.

Just the negative self-talk.

It's, and what you're saying that bully the constant put downs, which actually

create a lack of confidence and the lack of self-image and self-worth, what they'd

say is they struggle with self-worth.

So I'm wondering, For women, regardless of age and circumstance, who is really

struggling with their self-worth.

They're Catholics who have been walking the faith for a long time.

What are some practical ways in which they can actually, I guess,

get a handle and get a little bit of control over that negative self-talk?

Like we talked about, being an active participant, we have far

more control than we realize.

We don't actually have to play these scripts in our head, and I know,

you know, doing the MEA training.

Just realizing it was such an, an eye-opener when they said, you know,

your, um, negative thoughts are nothing more than sentences in your mind.

That's all they are.

So we actually can choose what sentences are running through our mind.

So I'm wondering if you can speak in on a practical level to women

who are struggling with self-worth.

What can they actually do?

They've been practicing the faith for a while, but they need some tools.

They need some skills to start to actually become these active participants.

Yeah, so you know, you can say all of the scripts and affirmations to replace

the negative with a positive one.

And you know, as you know with neuroscience and neuroplasticity,

all of this, that will work.

However, it won't work if you don't get to the root of the original negative.

Statement or thought.

And what a lot of times people will end up saying is, I have a negative

self-image, I have negative self-worth.

I need to work on this.

So my first thought of working on this is not finding a script

to replace something with.

Um, but it's actually to get back to a belief that that negative thought

is attached to, and being able to, in a sense, like it's a very tightly

woven braid that is tied into a certain thinking that we have.

And unless you unravel the braid one by one, Yeah.

You're not going to be able to really make the progress, the lasting

progress that we're looking for.

So when I'm doing any type of coaching, we go over that and, uh, we go over

a whole list of questions of like, what are the beliefs that we have

about like, where is that negative thought coming from and digging.

And really digging where, where is it coming from?

And a lot of times we see this obviously connected back to our childhood, right?

I mean, we all have an origin story.

We all have, literally, we all started at some point in this life.

We were created right by our parents and God the father.

And then there's been all these experiences.

And then we're at this point now in our adulthood where we're

like, I, you know, I think I'd like to understand myself better.

Mm-hmm.

And I think I'd like to, you know, live a little bit more of, of a free life.

I'd like to have more energy, or I'd like to like, let go of the pain.

I'd like to have a better outlook on life.

I wanna actually be an active participant in my life, an active player.

And so that has to do with doing some hard work.

Right.

And, and so I would go back, If you are struggling with self-worth, if

you're struggling with something like write down, like what is that

phrase that you continue to say over and over, where is it coming from?

Because there is a belief attached to it, and our beliefs are really the, the area

where all of these thoughts are formed.

And some of these beliefs are not true.

Yes.

But we held, have held onto.

And because of that, they've created, uh, a an image of ourself, um,

what we believe ourself worth is.

And so we've based it on that.

And until you've kind of like Unbraided mm-hmm.

And undo those knots, you'll be able to kind of see like, oh, and I mean,

I remember, I remember, I remember doing this particularly with me.

I had a, I had a, um, I had a situation with me where, uh, for a long time,

for instance, like very practical example here is for a very long time I

just always thought like I was stupid.

I was dumb.

Um, I did not think I was smart.

I did not think I could make it.

And I, my behavior started to follow that thought, even though

it technically wasn't true.

I'm able to learn.

I'm able, you know, to do well in school, but I didn't because I believed I was not.

Later on in college, I didn't wanna believe it, you know, I was like, I

was so tired of believing that I was stupid and believing I was smart and

not doing well, barely graduating high school with my grades, but I did.

But in college, I was like, I'm not, I, I just, I don't wanna believe this anymore.

So I worked really hard and I made straight ass and 4.0 and graduated

with full honors all in college.

But I still never dealt with the issue.

I never dealt.

Why do you think that you're not smart?

And so it reared its ugly head.

Even after college, even after I got into a PhD program for neuropsychology,

even after I was, I mean like it doesn't matter what I was doing and

what I was proving to the world that I'm smart because inside I felt stupid.

I felt like I was not good enough and I was never gonna be the

smart girl, and I had to prove myself to the world by being that.

And I had to do the work, like what is this tied to?

And I would go back and I would go back and I would think back about grade

school and I would even think like high school and then grade school.

And then there was this one moment where I was like, oh my gosh, this is it.

And it spent time journaling and really thinking about it, like doing

the uncomfortable work of thinking about things that are, yeah, hard

and difficult and uncomfortable.

But I remember it was this one moment where I was in first

grade and I had this teacher.

Who refused to allow me to participate in class because I had a stutter

and my stutter was so extreme.

Yes, I had a very bad stutter, and the stutter was so extreme that I was not

able to speak without stuttering a lot, and it would prohibit the class from

moving quickly because the stutter was so severe and so, Instead of me participating

in these phonics lessons when you like read and, you know, read in front of

the class, uh, she did not like the fact that it took me too long and she would

every day hand me a box of un sharpened pencils and she would put me in the corner

and she would make me sharpen pencils.

Oh, well everybody else was in class.

I was such a little girl.

I was in first grade, far out, so this message was clearly being

told to me, yes, you're not smart.

Yes, you cannot.

Speak and because you can't speak, you're not smart and you can't

participate, so keep your mouth shut.

Don't speak up.

And I internalized that experience to where it carried me on and when I would.

But the point is when I was able to kind of unbraided this experience

for me of like, oh my gosh, this is where it's coming from.

The freedom it gave me to understand myself, the freedom

it gave me to think like, wow.

And then I was able to like look at that little girl in the first

grade and be like, oh, Leah.

Yeah.

It's not that you're not smart.

You had a hard time speaking and you needed some help actually.

You know, calming the anxieties within within you.

To speak without stuttering to do that work and therapy there.

It's not that you are not smart.

So I, I was able to kind of reach into that space of who I was as

a little girl to understand that that negative self-worth that I

carried for, oh my goodness so long.

Yeah.

Had nothing to do with actually my abilities, but it had to do

with someone else's woundedness being brought into my life.

Absolutely.

And so often that's the case, isn't.

It's somebody else's wounds or limitations, but they, there's a message

that we draw from those experiences and those wounds in life, which then

turn into the beliefs which shape.

It's amazing the power of a single belief to shape our whole life.

Yes.

And so that's the awesome work of personal development, why I love this stuff so

much and you know, you're able to like have a Christian worldview in here and

you see like the Lord is calling us into.

This work.

And in fact, I mean, if you call yourself a Christian, you've

entered into the greatest personal development program on the planet.

Amen.

I mean, Christ calls us into transformation.

He calls us into restoration.

He calls us into resurrection.

And so this is the work of kind of understanding who we are.

I mean, I was able to, you know, forgive myself, forgive this teacher, um, to do

the healing work within me, but also.

To see where that belief started and that belief was tied into this

really negative self-identity and self-worth, and I was able to change it.

And I no longer hold onto that.

Like it is not a, I absolutely.

Every time it tries to enter back into, I'm like, no.

That is a lie.

Yeah.

I am.

I am capable.

I'm capable of learning.

Yeah.

I am.

I'm a smart woman and I am able to do all things with Christ, and I'm

able to have like new beliefs that I work into my daily life to remind me

of that truth because I, I've been able to, See where it's coming from.

Yeah.

And it's so important, just listening to you, it's incredible because if someone

looks at your life on the outside and you just listed all of those achievements

that you, you made academically, but you, they weren't enough.

Even though you had all of this evidence and proof that you actually

were smart, it wasn't enough.

No, it's, it's incredible just the power and I think the invitation for women

actually is not to come away from this conversation with condemnation or feeling

like, I just can never get on top of this.

This is always gonna be this way.

The invitation, cuz that's the enemy, that's the voice of the enemy that

wants to keep women contained, right?

He wants to keep them contained by the lies.

They will never be able to overcome a certain thing.

But I think the voice of God is very much this gentle invitation

that's constantly inviting us into a deeper relationship with him.

And that is a relationship where he wants to give us joy, freedom, and wholeness.

And you know, the beautiful scripture of being renewed by

the transformation of your mind.

Our transformation in Christ happens so much in this area of

the work of our thought life.

And, and so there's a beautiful invitation for women right here to really

go away and, and start to discover, start to do some of this work because

the freedom you've spoken about, the freedom that you've experienced.

I made a vow that I would never do public speaking.

I would never do podcast, never be on a video, never, ever, ever.

And I, when I did my work, I traced it back to grade six, my confirmation.

I was beside myself.

I was asked to read a reading, and I read the wrong reading, and I sat down

and everybody laughed at me and I was a really shy kid, and it was just, I

was done from that point, never again.

But once you deal with that wound and that false belief, The freedom

now, like, uh, Jonathan and I speak, we speak around the world.

We speak here in Australia, and I honestly, there's no sense of anxiety

or nerves anymore because it's showing up with the gifts God's given me to

serve in whatever capacity he asks.

And there's a beautiful freedom that comes when we encounter

Christ, um, and his healing.

And, and I do.

I mean, there's all this practical work, but even before that, there is an

encounter that we're invited into with the Lord, and it's an encounter where we

actually receive our identity as being the beloved daughter, being his beloved.

That we don't have to do or prove our worth, that that identity just

comes from the fact that we we're his.

And I think there's a beautiful starting place there, isn't there?

Like just to encounter the Lord's unconditional love for.

Yeah, there's, you know, our identity obviously is rooted in

him and we as Christians know this.

And I think what's really beautiful about doing this work and when you,

when you start doing work in personal development as a Christian, you.

Don't go back to your past.

You don't revisit the past.

You don't revisit like wounds in the dark.

You bring, you know, think about like bringing like this big lighted candle

with you and you're gonna go back.

You might have to go back to some things in the past to find some

clarity around it or some deeper understanding, but you bring the light

of Christ into that and Christ shows you like you're not in the dark alone.

You're here wi he's with you, he's with you.

So that healing can can be done.

So that you can continue moving forward.

And I think being able to have that perspective in this work and knowing

your identity in Christ from the very beginning is, is obviously paramount.

I mean, I always, I always go back to people, um, and I love to bring him back

into, you know, the book of Genesis.

Go, go back to the very beginning.

And um, the first two questions that God ever uttered are in Genesis three.

And the first question that he said to Adam and Eve, he said,

which he says to humanity.

He says to me, and you right now, and everybody listening, the first

question he said is, where are you?

Where are you?

And he asked us that to this day, like, where are you?

You know?

Yeah.

Are you far from me?

Are you drifting?

Are you doubting?

It's okay, but where are you?

He wants to know.

It's a, it's a question too that God gives us, which is so beautiful

because it's an invitation for a.

Right?

Mm-hmm.

It's not a screaming thing, it's a, it's not a statement, it's a question because

he wants, he's waiting for us to respond.

The second question in Genesis that he gives to Adam and Eve, but again, he

gives to all of humanity and to us, is after they explained to him what had

happened, um, he asked them very simple question and he just said, who told you?

Who told you you were naked?

Who told you about this again?

Pointing us to being able to pay attention to who are we listening to?

Who are we listening to, our life, our identity in, in God, the Father, our, our

identity in Christ Jesus is one where we have to constantly kind of be checking

ourselves and being like, where are we?

Where am I in this path with the Lord?

Yeah, and, and who, who's telling me about myself?

Like, who's telling me what beauty is?

Who's telling me what identity and self-worth are?

Like who says.

And God's asking us to kind of do a little bit of check of

like, okay, are are you with me?

Where are you?

Are you listening to me?

I'm speaking.

And it's just, you know, when I think about our identity in God, I,

you know, there's so many things in scripture that we can look at, but

I always seem to go back to Genesis three, and I ask myself, and I journal

with those questions very often.

Like, you know, a God asking me like, Leah, where are you right now?

And Leah, who told you?

Who told you that?

Are those my words?

Are those the words of the world?

Who told you that?

And why do you believe that they're beautiful?

I love those questions and, and just when you spoke them that

particularly that who told you?

I think that's a really beautiful question for women to take before

the Lord in the blessed sacrament or in their personal prayer time.

Just who's telling you these things about yourself?

Who's telling you that?

And then I guess to just receive from the Lord what he is saying,

his truth about who you are.

And I think one of the other practical skills is women discerning the.

Of the, the voices that they're actually listening to.

And we talk about the tone of the voice, like is it harsh?

Is it condemning, is it critical?

Because that's never the voice of the Lord.

It's never the voice of truth about who we are and our worth.

And I think one of the practical skills that women can learn is really tuning

in, becoming intentional and learning to discern where those voices are coming.

So it's beautiful.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, yeah.

You're welcome.

And, you know, speaking about wor, about those voices, where they're coming from,

and as you continue to do this work, um, you know, I would, I would, I would also

pay attention to your, your vocabulary.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Your vocabulary is just, Amazing.

I love, I love this.

I, I teach a whole, like a whole, a whole session in my program is dedicated to

just vocabulary because I really believe it's so important and to have a, have

a resurrection vocabulary, to have a, have a vocabulary that really speaks

into new life, uh, is really important.

So, you know, even if you're like not sure where, what to do, Maybe

something is, pay attention to the words that you say each day, that

describe your day or describe yourself.

Do you use words all the time?

Like, oh, this is terrible.

Oh, of course it's gonna happen to me.

Or you were like, okay, or fine.

And if you want a fine life, then keep saying fine all the time when

someone says, how are you doing?

I'm fine.

Yeah, that's all you're gonna get.

That's all you're gonna get if that.

But if you want more out of your.

Look at how you des are describing your life.

Look at how you're describing your day and your thoughts and yourself.

I mean, they're just small things, but these small things do

add up and it's very practical.

It's, it's an easy exercise to do.

I mean, just think about what words you typically use to describe your

day or yourself, and then maybe think about replacing them with

more powerful or empowering words.

Mm.

That's so true.

I mean, our whole culture and politically is being shaped by

language, a change in language, right?

Yes.

So imagine like if we reshape that language in our own life and, and God

gives us that beautiful ability to do so.

Leah, I'm wondering whether or not you would say a prayer just over the women

listening as we close this episode.

Because I think when we start to talk about these things, You

know, the, the ground and the soil of our soul is stirred.

And I'm just wondering if we, we love to just seal what we are doing, you

know, what the Lord's doing in our life.

So if you close in prayer, that would be beautiful.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

I'm, I'm the father and the Son and the holy spiriting.

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me.

A sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me.

A.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me.

A sinner.

Lord Jesus becomes you today, and I just wanna give you

Jesus, every ounce of my doubt.

I wanna give you every ounce of my imposter syndrome.

I wanna give you every ounce of fear that holds me back from being fully me

by Jesus.

I want you to express in my heart the love you have for.

Express in the hearts of everyone listening, the love you have for them,

everything that we bring to the Lord together, me and you, we give to the Lord.

And so Lord Jesus, I'm asking you just to come down and we're gonna allow you to be

you, to be Savior, to be redeemer, to be.

And know that whatever you're stirring in our hearts, Lord, whatever it is,

whatever the next step is for each one of us on our own terms and our own ways

to take the next step towards growth with you, please guide and direct that step.

Protect that step.

Send your army of angels down upon us and down upon our families to

protect us so that we may grow and develop more into the person that you,

Jesus Christ are calling us to be.

However you are calling us to grow, Lord Jesus, we ask that

you continue to shine your light.

Upon that just next step, so that we may do something, we may take action,

that we may be women of action.

And that we may become.

Closer into the person that you are calling us to be.

All for your glory and all for the kingdom.

Amen.

Amen.

The Father, the Son.

Well, I really hope and pray that you found that conversation with Leah,

insightful, helpful, encouraging, and really gave you some practical

insights and some ideas around how you can begin your journey towards

wholeness in this area of self-worth, and you really claiming and reclaim.

A sense of your value, your dignity, and your beauty as a beloved daughter

and a woman in the world today.

I wonder if you ever go through your life feeling that you are just not enough.

If this is you, I'd really love to invite you to check out our

Catholic coaching programs for Catholic women in these programs.

We really try and get to the root cause of, I guess, some of the

results and the actions and the feelings that you're feeling in your.

This process is very biblical and it's deeply rooted in scripture.

In Scripture we read that we are to be renewed by the transformation of our mind.

But sometimes we actually don't know how to do this transformation.

And what Catholic Coaching can offer you is the tips and the tools and

the strategies to learn how to be renewed and how to be an active

participant in your own transformation.

So ladies, if you're interested in finding out more about Catholic coaching

for Catholic women, Please send me an email, Karen genius project.co.

It would be an incredible privilege and honor to walk alongside you and

to really equip you with some of these tools and strategies to help you

really grow and step into the fullness of who God has created you to be.

Until next week, ladies, have a beautiful week.

God bless you, and I look forward to you joining us again next