David:

[0:00] Paul said in Philippians 4, 6-7, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding and guards your hearts and your minds. Stress and anxiety and temptation for us is a constant pressure for all of us, and especially in leadership and business. And when we are anxious, we make bad decisions, and we make decisions we regret. it. And I would venture that most of us would be affected by it and understand the negative effects of it. Even though God has told us not to be anxious, we do. We get anxious and we worry about stuff. So today I brought on Jodi Howe to talk about anxiety, the effects of it, and basically how to detect it and how to overcome it. And she's written a book called The Air That I Breathe. It's a daily devotional. I think it's about a three-week devotional, but yeah, it's something worthwhile to check out.

David:

[0:58] So Jody, welcome. And to start off, to spur us on, could you tell us one way you have found how to honor God in your business?

Jodi:

[1:08] First and foremost, hello, David. We have been working to try to get this together and I'm so glad to be here. So thank you so much for that. And the best way I think we can honor God is through authenticity of his word and through authenticity of who we are as his daughters and sons of God himself. And so I try to think about the word integrity, biblical integrity, character integrity the way i operate as a mom and as a daughter and in ministry and through friendships that's a lot of what i try to implement into my daily walk with ministry is am i walking into any situation with authenticity and integrity of god's bible yes i have to use that because some people have a different version of that but my version is I follow Jesus Christ and what that looks like.

David:

[2:04] Yep. To the best of our knowledge and ability. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you for that insight.

David:

[2:12] Please take a few minutes to explain a little bit about yourself and maybe the book you've written and why you are writing about anxiety. What makes you an expert in that?

Jodi:

[2:22] Oh, thank you for calling me an expert because I've actually never thought of that.

David:

[2:27] Experting that you learn how to handle it. I mean, I'm an expert at worrying, but yeah.

Jodi:

[2:32] Well, with that said, I appreciate that. And the good news is if I hadn't have encountered anxiety as a physical and spiritual disability, I know that was the Lord coming into my life to show me who he was and how he had a purpose. And I was a chosen daughter to do ministry. And this was the sort of the stepping stone to getting my, you know, knowledge of him out there. And of course, it's been a growth process. But it was about 15 years. I'll give you a quick snippet because it is in the book.

Jodi:

[3:10] That I all of a sudden got very, very sick to the point where I couldn't eat, sleep, or breathe. And it was debilitating. And it was anxiety. I kept going to doctors and they were doing this head-to-toe workup and they were coming up with nothing.

Jodi:

[3:23] And I, well, eventually it was, you know, medically diagnosed as anxiety. And so it came down to going in a place where I know the Lord was sort of nudging my mom to tell me to go, which was a walk with Jesus. And it's a beautiful story that my mom, who is a believer, but wasn't exactly walking with Jesus at the time, felt the nudge to send me over to a friend's house who was walking with Jesus to sort of explain my situation, be prayed over, offer an opportunity to be in a Bible study. And it just started from there. And it was this incredible experience, journey, and just beautiful evolution of a walk with Christ, which helped me to eliminate the walk with my own flesh. And so as I started to heal from anxiety, praise God, of course, the passion, the passion of wanting to get out there in ministry to tell everyone about this good news, this good news that saved my life, this Jesus who saved my life.

Jodi:

[4:30] I kept looking for something to help me really understand anxiety. I didn't necessarily need to understand it on a clinical level. I had done the research to understand it on a clinical level. I wanted to understand it on a spiritual level. And so as I did my research to try to find what is out there, I couldn't find anything. And so the Lord laid it on my spirit, write the book that's not out there. And why I do a three-week devotional was because I didn't want anything I'm not a big C.S. Lewis fancy writer and I love C.S. Lewis and I love his wisdom but that Shakespearean kind of like intellectual writing doesn't always really work well in me because I'm just kind of like a sort of short you know short attention span person we're.

David:

[5:20] All different we're all different different. Absolutely.

Jodi:

[5:23] Not necessarily with the Bible, because I certainly want to know the word of God, uh, fluently, authentically and truth, truthfully. But I, I needed to know that from the God, the God that laid this on my spirit, our God that laid this on the spirit that I could just write it very tenderly and very honestly. And so that's basically what I wrote. And the reason why I wrote a three week devotional, 22 days, which is kind of a weird number. Typically, if you look at the Bible and you've got, oh, we have seven days, we have 40 days. We have a lot of significant biblical numbers. Well, I wrote that because it took about three weeks for me to really go from debilitated to starting to breathe again. And so that's kind of why I chose that 22 day. It takes about three weeks when you recognize it. You work through medical professionals. You work through spiritual professionals. You work through all professionals. And that's when I started to actually breathe again.

Jodi:

[6:19] And that's just, that's basically why. And again, back to the short term, I don't want it to be too complicated. What I'm, what I'm giving you in this book is I'm giving you day and night. So essentially it's 44 tips about what you need to do to eliminate anxiety. But of course I glorify the Lord in it because I start off with scripture and I end it with a prayer because I believe that that intentional muscle that we're, we're utilizing every single day through prayer, through, you know, understanding God's word and fruit. Implementing that in everything we do, every single day, every day, that of course is its own healing. And so I had to be able to honor the Lord by saying, okay, I'm going to give you a tip. Don't drink an energy drink if you're having anxiety attacks, but also let me bring some word of God into your spirit and let's give it to him at the end of this discussion or the end of this chapter, if that makes any sense.

David:

[7:13] Absolutely.

Jodi:

[7:14] So that's kind of where that came from.

David:

[7:18] Yeah, no, that's good. That's good. So I'm a quality engineer and we have quality management systems, which is a whole world in and of itself. But in there we have PFEMAs, but we talk about a risk priority number. And basically you have different steps in your process. And for each step, we rate them based upon severity, occurrence, and detectability. If something were to go wrong, If you're machining a part and this particular aspect of the part didn't get machined correctly, that's severity. How would it affect the patient occurrence? How often does it happen in detectability? I thought it might be interesting to go down that route with anxiety. So starting with severity is how I know how bad anxiety can be. But what's like what's the range? What's the minimum it can do to you? What's the maximum it can do to you as far as severity goes?

Jodi:

[8:16] Based on my particular journey with this, it was very severe. And so, and ironically, I met people along the way of this journey with anxiety that had it as severe as I had it, where it takes your whole physical body down, that eating food, sleeping.

Jodi:

[8:36] Interacting with people is hard. And for some people, it's actually become to a place of debilitation that it's social where they couldn't leave the house. And I know that maybe you've heard stories, maybe some of your listeners have heard a lot of stories out there where people just are so socially anxious that they can't even leave the homes. And so it became this recognition that I was a severe case of it. And there's so many different opinions right now in the world of mental health but i believe that you have to be able to obviously give this to the lord and through his wisdom he will direct you where you need to go to be able to find that healing and of course his word prayer his presence but i i i find it to be somewhat irresponsible to ever be the person that says prayed away because it is a physical ailment. It isn't listed under the mental health category as general anxiety disorder. That's specifically what I deal with, which means I was anxious all the time. I was prone to panic attacks. And if you've never had a panic attack, I'm so happy. And that thrills me because they are the most horrible attacks that you can experience. Now, obviously they, they come and they go.

Jodi:

[9:55] But anyone out there who knows what a panic attack feels like, it feels like a heart attack. And it feels like everything is shutting down and everything is just over, everything is shutting down in terms of your ability to control your body, but it's escalated where your heart rate and you sweat and you feel like you're going to just die. And it's an awful feeling. And so There's so much involved in the anxiety world that it's very important that regardless if you're very severe or even if you're just generally every day a worry war, number one, it's not of God. Number two, he most definitely can heal it. And number three, there is Western medicine out there to help as well.

David:

[10:39] Sure. Okay. Does that help? Yeah, it does. That's like the extreme. I know I worry some and I've been... Had depression a little bit before, but I've never been that extreme. But like when people, if, okay, let's, we'll go on to detectability later, but occurrence, is that like, Obviously for you, it was all the time. Do some people experience worry like one day a week and then not the rest of it? Or is it triggered by something throughout the day or what?

Jodi:

[11:14] That's actually a great question. So yeah. So the detectability, which means is how do you know that you have it? Is that to understand the word? Okay. Well, under the medical health industry of knowledge.

Jodi:

[11:29] Anxiety definitely can happen through physical ailments in your body. So one of the things that I mentioned in my book is before you even go anywhere into the world of anxiety and understanding it, please, please go to a doctor and get a full physical workout because it could mean that there are so many different parts of our body that are off kilter. Now I have a thyroid condition is a great example. And so if you're hyperthyroid or hypothyroid, I'm Hashimoto's, which means both.

Jodi:

[12:01] But if you're hypothyroid, you're sluggish, you're tired, you can be depressed, you're dry skin and all that. You're hyperthyroid, you're anxious, you're energetic, you lose a lot of weight. And of course, I'm just, I'm not a doctor and I don't claim to be one on a podcast or on this podcast, but those are basically the symptoms of those. It's, it was important to know that I didn't at the time, and I'll make that very clear. I did not have a thyroid conditioning causing my condition to cause my anxiety, but it was also important for me as an anxious person to go to a heart doctor and make sure that my heart is working well. I don't have any other issues that I deal with in terms of diabetes or all other kinds of, you know, Western medicine, physical ailments that we deal with on a daily basis. So In order to get that full bill of health that I was doing great physically was one kind of component that I was able to eliminate that, okay, so I'm not a sick person. There's nothing really going on with my body.

Jodi:

[12:59] So then it must just be anxiety. And so now I needed to sort of explore what does that mean in my body? What am I doing right or wrong that could be encouraging anxiety? And in the book where my tried and true tips come out, there's so many things we don't even realize we're doing. And we, you know, as you and I as believers in Christ, we know that God gave us this vessel and it's critical that we take care of it. And so the bad foods you put into your bodies, the bad drinks you put into your bodies, and that includes alcohol, coffee, you know, not sleeping well, not exercising, not taking time for rest. All of those things, if you're not implementing a good lifestyle, a good healthy lifestyle, can encourage anxiety in your life.

David:

[13:47] So those can all push you towards the anxiety in a physical body part of it, not even talking about emotionally or spiritually.

Jodi:

[13:56] And then there's the hormonal part of it too. So of course I mentioned the thyroid, which is a hormonal imbalance. But it was women and men. We all have hormonal imbalances through life, through our young adulthood, into the married, baby stages, life, and then getting outside of that. There's just so many influences. And so it's important, I believe that you have a conversation with your doctor and find out how your physical body is. And so then from there, if there is an issue, you could deal with it. Western medicine is very advanced. And even if there's not in my case, because this was prior to my Hashimoto's, which by the way, never was an anxious occurrence through my body. It was a whole different set of, you know, things that I had to deal with. It helped to me to say, Jodi, you need to eat better. Jodi, sleep is important. Get into the word every single day. Put on the armor of God when the world is coming against you. So many ways that we can work as, women and men walking with Jesus that we can actually be fruitful in our spirit and we can be prosperous in our lives. We just have to acknowledge it and own it.

David:

[15:08] Yeah. I appreciate that insight to, you know, go get yourself physically checked out first because there's different opinions about that, that you should never go to a doctor. You should always go to a doctor, but you know, just here's the steps, get it checked out physically. I know my mom had issues with that when she was older on. I was the youngest of seven, and we would have family reunions with 30 people in the house, and she would feed us, take care of us with not a thought. But she hit a time around 80-ish that something happened internally with one of her glands or thyroids or something, and we couldn't go hardly visit her and stay with her because she would stress her out just to prepare a meal. So my sister, thankfully, was across the street. So when we visited my parents, we actually stayed with my sister because it was just too much. And she worked with the doctor trying different medicines to try. And it did finally get her going again when they found the right combination. But that's all it was. It was one of the, as I said, the chemical factories in the body wasn't working properly. So we all know that is a reality.

Jodi:

[16:14] And I want us to be able to be open-minded to that because, you know, people do have heart disease. People do deal with other kinds of physicalities that don't help our body thrive well. And so we go and we see a doctor and we get it fixed. And I believe God gave us that beautiful world of Western medicine so we can,

Jodi:

[16:33] or Eastern medicine, however. But there are ways to get better, spirit, soul, and body.

David:

[16:39] Yep. So that's physically. What can we do spiritually to help us overcome anxiety in our life?

Jodi:

[16:47] So the beauty of our Bible, the God breathed living word of God is just that he says it so many times. Don't be anxious. Do not worry. Do not fear.

Jodi:

[16:58] And I just love our God so much, Dave, because I can see that he knew what we were going to be experiencing in the 2020s of the world. And most especially, and I don't know exactly where everyone is with their walk with Christ as your listener, most especially though, you've got to wake up in the first and foremost thing. You have to give it to God. You have to give him your life, your world, your walk, your work, your children, your husbands, your wives, your everything. That surrender and that obedience is its own set of peace that I'm not ultimately in charge he is and so my advice to people always is this do you have a relationship with Jesus I mean I am a steadfast Jesus girl walking with him wholeheartedly so I don't really fluff up the conversation do you walk with Christ and if you don't that's okay today's a new day and with that new hope. Get in the word of God. And if it helps you to go into Philippians, Philippians is such a beautiful book. I love that you referenced my life verse chapter of Philippians when I was really, really sick and getting to know, getting better and getting to know the Lord, my early stages of my walk, I was in that scripture first and foremost, Philippians four, verse six through seven. And he says it, do not be anxious.

Jodi:

[18:18] And it's, it's not a, Hey guys, it's probably not a good idea to be anxious. It is a command. You know, we understand his commands. Do not be anxious. Paul is speaking from God saying, don't do it. Don't be anxious. And then it doesn't stop there. And with everything, everything, not just a couple of things, not two things, everything in prayer, there it is. Conversation with God is prayer and petition, which is like, I give it to you that to me, the word petition means, I petition this, I surrender this, I'm with you, God, in this. And with everything in prayer and petition, give your request to God. So he's not leaving you at that place of anxious. He's saying, give it to me. So God, I'm anxious. God, I'm fearful. God, I'm worried. And then what happens from there in that scripture? Something that I hope and pray, and everyone listening gets to experience this phrase, prayer, scripture called the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Jodi:

[19:24] I mean, I have had that experience and I yearn and lean on it through everything now. And it's a peace that doesn't make sense to the common fleshy world, right? It doesn't make sense. How can you be peaceful when your husband of 27 years leaves you in your marriage. Well, I've got God and he gave me a peace that surpasses one above what you all think makes sense. He gave me a peace through it. So it's just that out of thousands of scriptures that show us how much he loves us and cares and wants us to live prosperous in spirit, fruitful in our Holy Spirit and peaceful because he sent his son who is the Prince of Peace.

David:

[20:18] Yep. And I buy into all of that. I understand that. But for our listeners, can you think of what would help you give it to God? I mean, I can say, hey, just don't be anxious. Give it to God because I have a really super big view of who God is. What have you found encouraging other people? But how do you get them to that point of, I know it says it, but I don't know if I can. How do you get them over that hurdle?

Jodi:

[20:46] So you're asking me to sort of give a life applicable perspective.

David:

[20:52] Sure. Okay.

Jodi:

[20:53] Cause I understand you're writing Christian in the Christian world that we walk in and in the Christianese verbiage, it's always like, just give it to God and then walk away and hope that things are going to be so easy. And that's, that's not it. So let me, let me put it to you into the example of this. And I think this really helps. This has helped me whenever we want to see change in our lives. And you and I talked about the fact that we, we both have read atomic habits. So not so much getting to the goal. So maybe the goal, if you're an anxious person, is the goal is to be not anxious. Yeah. Right. Okay. So what are the processes to get to that goal?

Jodi:

[21:30] And that's why I love that book so much is because it's very simple sometimes. And we don't even know that because we're such over thinkers. If I want to get in shape physically, what is the first thing that I need to do? The first thing that I need to do is watch the food that I put into my body. And common sense, which I hope everybody has, but we all know sometimes they don't.

David:

[21:51] We don't. But let's assume that your listeners have that.

Jodi:

[21:55] Eating burgers and fries and cakes throughout the day is not going to help you lose weight, okay? You have to have a nutrient based, healthy nutrient based diet in order to lose weight. And then the next step is you have to start exercising. That's just been proven for decades and centuries. Exercise is important. So I have to make a step every single day Maybe look at what my weight is figure out what that goal weight eventually will be and then the processes in between It means i'm going to actually start watching what I eat going to the gym.

Jodi:

[22:29] Exercising giving myself grace because I know that when I go to the gym I'm, not going to be lifting 25 pound weights the first few weeks. It's going to take me time to build up to that, And then eventually I will hopefully either reach my goal or if not, get close to it and feel better about my physical self. And so as believers, we have to put the work in. And Paul reminds us of that in the New Testament all the time. It's not overnight. Yeah, I can have the spirit of God laid into my spirit at this very moment if I haven't walked with him. But now I got to get to know him. How am I going to get to know God? I have to read his word. How am I going to do that? I make it a priority in my life every day. And how am I going to do that? I look at my calendar and I say, okay, I have a job. I have children. I have maybe a spouse. I have a family. How am I going to implement time in my day to give it to God so I can get to know this God? So then when I get to know this God, I'm going to start building a relationship with him and real building relationship. I'm going to start to implement his word in my mind. And every time a scary thought gets into my mind, I'm going to be able to say, wait a minute. He said, do not be anxious. And then I'm going to start really living and meditating on that on a daily basis.

Jodi:

[23:43] It's an intentional walk, David. And sometimes people overthink it like, that's just too much. Well, you get to make a choice every day. What is too much? You're a successful man in business. You knew you had to get an education in order to get a job, or you had to get a trade under your belt in order to learn it.

Jodi:

[24:02] Why is it any different when I walk with Christ? and getting that peace that surpasses understanding. I mean, it's really not that different, but I think that we're so overwhelmed in this world as we are. We have cell phones and internets that just completely take down what is just supposed to be a natural way to live and make us feel overwhelmed, scared, fearful. We're not doing enough. We're not successful enough. The world is just going to blow up any day now. I mean, just the craziness that happened. But I have to protect my mind. With the thoughts that come in and come out of it and so you know paul or yeah paul does this in the book of romans chapter 12 verse 2 he says you do not conform to the ways of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and he's telling us that and i have to do that every day i have to be intentional at that so if that means that don't watch the news don't watch the news if that means go through your social media and make sure you stop following certain people that are bringing you bad news and making you feel fearful. You can edit that. Feel fearful.

David:

[25:04] You filter things out that aren't helpful. Yes.

Jodi:

[25:07] Exactly. So I just, I'm one of those women in ministry that encourages an intentionality in order to see real change.

David:

[25:16] Yeah. No, that, that makes sense. That illustration was good about working out because you don't say I'm going to be in shape tomorrow. I'm not going to be in shape tomorrow.

Jodi:

[25:24] If I wanted to run a 10K, I can't run it tomorrow. If today's the day that I've been sitting on my butt for four months and I'm going to say, I'm signing up for a 10K, say, in July, I better get going now to get in shape. Or the first half K, I'm going to pass out. Does that help your listeners?

David:

[25:44] Oh, yes.

Jodi:

[25:44] That's how I apply things in my life. You just have to build up the process.

David:

[25:48] Yep. And building it by daily reading, daily praying, you're building that relationship.

David:

[25:53] I know for me, when my faith has grown the most is when I get a bigger and bigger view of God. And that's usually from reading the scriptures, praying, seeing him work in my life, answering prayers. I get a very, very big view of God. Isaiah 40 is great, 12 through 17. But God is all powerful. He can do anything. And he loves you too. um right absolutely so cool so the the three three things i'm i guess i'm going to teach now but uh the three things about god that are very super helpful to help expand my view of god is one god loves you and he loves you more than you love yourself and he wants what's best for you more than you two god is all-knowing and he knows what's best for you more than you know the best for you and three god is all-powerful and so since he's all-powerful he's able to help you get through whatever he brings your way. So his love, his knowledge, his power, you get that through your head and then you can look at it, give me your anxiety. Well, yeah, it makes that a whole lot easier to do. And I think it's just like working out step by step. You get better.

Jodi:

[27:07] You do. You have to put the work in.

David:

[27:10] But it's good work.

Jodi:

[27:12] You know, I'm looking at the scriptures in front of me in Isaiah 49, 23. It says, God says, those who hope in me will not be disappointed. Yeah. You and I are believers. We can attest to that. We can declare, I have never been disappointed with a walk with Christ. Never. Not once. Life has disappointed me. The world around me has disappointed me. Numerous times. But God has never disappointed me. He's so good. And yeah, to some people who don't necessarily know what that feels like, I get it. It is kind of a fluffy, kind of a, just like, oh, Bible thumping thought process. We don't go out there and declare the gospel messages of God because we have nothing better to do. Because we want you to feel that peace that surpasses understanding. If I hadn't had God, I would not be here today. Bottom line. And that's not just the birth of my life. That is the saving of my life. So.

David:

[28:12] Very good.

Jodi:

[28:13] Honey, a good God, David.

David:

[28:15] Absolutely. Great God. Jodi, you've talked about a lot today.

David:

[28:21] Is there one focusing question that you could, I guess one focusing question is one challenge you'd like to give to my listeners today as we wrap this up?

Jodi:

[28:31] So I've started a new series on Instagram and Facebook. It's called Heart Check with Jodi. And I have to do my own heart check. So I'm not out there like telling you, I'll get your stuff together without me having to get my own stuff together on a daily basis. His mercies are renewed every day. And the beauty of that scripture is because God knows that we're going to need to be saved every single day. I mean, the act of salvation is the act of salvation, but just being dead to the world and starting fresh every single day. So what I want you to take away is check your heart. The word the Lord laid on me last year, and it's continuous this year, along with the word abide, which means stay in him, abide in him, is integrity. Check your integrity because we can apply that to our work. We can apply that to our family. We can apply it to every walk. We can apply it to how we act in a grocery store, at a gas station, wherever. Be integrous. Check your heart. And when you know that you're in, and let me just leave them, some of your listeners who may not have this active walk with Christ, and that's okay, I believe you will someday.

Jodi:

[29:43] Galatians 5, verses 22 through 23, the fruits of the Spirit, go and read those. And that is how you should act every day through integrity. Apply those nine ways and see if that makes any difference in how you walk forward in your world, in your family, in your job, and with Christ. And then let me know. Come and follow me on Instagram and tell me because I want to know.

David:

[30:14] Okay. That's great.

Jodi:

[30:15] Okay.

David:

[30:17] Yeah. Well, Jodi, thank you so much for your time, your encouragement today. And next step for the audience, put these things into practice. Check the show notes. We're going to have the links to Jodi's sites and what she's talking about and contact information if you want to learn more about her and her book and her Instagram site. And I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter because it's a great way to keep connected and not miss out on future communications. And if you're a perfectionist like me and you bitch to get caught up in the trap of indecision, book a call with me and we can help you get unstuck and move your business forward. That's all for now, friends. I trust you've been inspired to redeem your business, redeem your time, buy it back, and walk worthy of God's great name. Bye for now.