00:00:02 Speaker 1: Life Audio. 00:00:17 Speaker 2: Hey friend, when something feels uncertain in your life, where does your mind go? Do you start to try to figure everything out? You start generating what if so you can fix everything, and you find that you become even more anxious. Today I'm going to share why trying to fix everything that can really drive anxiety and how you can find peace one moment at a time. 00:00:48 Speaker 1: Well, friend, welcome to Breathe. 00:00:50 Speaker 2: The stress Less Podcast. I'm Bonnie Gray, your sole care guide for this time, designed just for you to refresh your with God's loving word of affirmation in scripture, and I'm going to give you a practical soul care tip based on science to restore calm to your emotions and your body. I'm the best selling author of Breed twenty one Days to stress Less and Transform Chaos to Calm. I'm also a soul care mentor and founder of soul Care School. Let me ask you a question. When something feels uncertain in your life, where does your mind go? Do you start to try to figure everything out, plan what to do next month, next year, or try to solve something that maybe doesn't really have a clear answer yet. Today we're talking about something that can change how you experience peace immediately. It's not by solving your problems, but it's actually stepping out of the worry loop. We're going to explore why your mind naturally tries to solve the future, you're not alone, and why it exhausts you. A simple shift that calms your nervous system and brings peace. A personal story that I went through about new beginnings, how we can really nurture those new beginnings, and of course we always end with a gentle soul care practice based on science that will help you to lower anxiety, stop that worry loop, and receive God's grace in the moment now. If you've been feeling overwhelmed, stuck in your thoughts, or carrying quiet stress, this episode is for you and one of the wonderful ways that I can also invite you to experience more peace and emotional rest in your Daydaily life with Jesus is my sole care courses for more rest, more joy, more peace. Thousands of women have experienced practical rhythms of peace and rest and joy that can really restore. 00:03:17 Speaker 1: Your soul in daily life. 00:03:19 Speaker 2: I want to invite you to just click on the links in the show notes, just check it out. If it's speaking to you and you're looking for practical ways to experience more joy, more peace, more rest, I know you'll love these courses. I created these based on scripture and science and my own journey through mentoring thousands of women and in my own life as well. So make sure you check that out and we'll be right back. Today's scripture for our breath prayer comes to us from a beautiful promise. Happens to be in one of my favorite epistles in the New Testament. It's from Hebrews four sixteen. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of Grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. What a beautiful promise. Let's breathe this truth in. Just relax, drop your shoulders, relax your hands, and breathe in. Let us draw near with confidence, breathe out that I might receive grace in time of need. Just pause, rest in this truth with Jesus, that we can draw near at any time. Well, last week my son came home for spring break and there's a tree outside my kitchen window, and just before he came back, it was bare. There was just nothing on its branches, but now it was budding, starting to have sprouts with leaves. Josh just came home off of a really intense week of finals, so he slept in a little later, and I got to enjoy some quiet, unhurried mornings with him. We'd sit together at the kitchen counter for late breakfast and I would tell him, Hey, sit over in this side, look out the window. See the tree. It's beginning to blossom. And he'd smile and say, yeah. 00:05:50 Speaker 1: That's nice. 00:05:51 Speaker 2: As we'd sit there, taking in the blue sky and seeing the signs of spring. Here's the funny thing it struck me. I was like, wait a minute. I remember I had a potted sapling tree in my backyard. It's a Japanese maple from our city's tree program. And I suddenly realized, oh my goodness, I hadn't watered it for a week. We just had a heat wave here in California, and so I went outside and when I saw it, my heart dropped. The bark looked like it was splitting dry and stressed, and I immediately thought, oh my gosh, oh no, I've harmed it. I quickly looked it up, googled it, and felt relief. The tree can still be Okay. Here's the key. Look for the buds. If there were buds on the branches, it meant that it was still alive. So even though the bark showed signs of stress, and of course that was hard for me to see. But here's what was great. It reminded me, because I did see the buds that new beginnings are tender, just like that pot of tree. That when we're in a new season, especially one filled with uncertainty, because new means we don't see yet what is to come, right, we need to take care of ourselves more, not less, more gentleness, more nourishment, because just like that tree that's in the pot, we don't hold resources very easily. If we forget to care for ourselves, we can start to feel dry and stressed and overwhelmed. But even then there are still buds. God is at work within you. There are signs of life, new beginnings, quiet growth. So instead of being hard on ourselves, we can gently return and ask how can I water my soul right now? And I realize sometimes the more we try to fix everything all at once, the more we kind of demand to ourselves, you know, demand ourselves or demand a situation or circumstance to just be fixed right away. We become more overwhelmed, we become more anxious. Those of the moments we actually need gentle care. We need gentle care in the moment. So if you find yourself being hard on yourself, it's really time to be more gentle with yourself, to give yourself more care. So let me ask you, when you face a challenging time or uncertainty, how do you treat yourself? Are you hard on yourself or are you gentle with yourself? Do you respond by taking better care of yourself or do you tend to maybe even forget about yourself and neglect yourself. I think this tree was a really powerful metaphor for me, and I hope that it gives you also a wonderful metaphor that you are like a tree. You need to take care of yourself to nurture yourself. One of the biggest sources of stress that we carry is trying to solve things that don't have immediate answers. The more you try to fix everything, the more you're going to see your anxiety begin to rise. Your mind goes to questions like how do I fix this this year. What will happen next month? How do I help my child make the right decisions? What if this doesn't work out? What if I can't find a job? What if the situation never changes? And our mind just keeps looping with what ifs. It's understandable, right because we're trying to protect ourselves, protect those we love. We're trying to solve everything. But you know what it creates. Anxiety or nerve system stays on high alert. And God did not design our nervous systems to live that way. That's why Hebrews four sixteen. Our breath prayer is telling us grace is given in your moment of need, not in the future, not in solving everything, but in what you need right now. So just like my tree didn't need a long term rescue plan, it just needed water in that moment right then. So, friend, I want to gently ask you your soul care prompt. What is your soul needing right now, not next month, not next year, right now? What would bring you even a small sense of relief, comfort, or care? Because grace means gift, that's the root word for grace, gift. How is God offering you a gift in this moment. Maybe it's stebbing outside and noticing the spring air the way it feels as you breathe it in. Maybe it's buying yourself some fresh flowers and placing them somewhere you'll see them, or refreshing one thing in your wardrobe, like maybe a spring dress or a cozy cardigan. Here's some more ideas taking a short walk and noticing what's budding around you look for signs of spring, or opening a window and letting fresh air come into your home, texting a friend just to say hello, doing one less chore today, canceling something you said yes to out of obligation, duty or fear, and giving yourself grace. What you want to do is try not to solve everything right now. By taking an action towards taking better care of yourself, you don't have to put your life on hold because something in your life feels uncertain. You can step out of the worry loop by receiving grace right here. What would that look like for you? As you ponder that we're going to take a break and we'll come back and learn about the science, there's a powerful research showing us that the way we use our attention affects our stress levels. When we get stuck in worry loops, what psychologists call rumination, our brain stays activated in the stress mode. We keep trying to solve things that don't have immediate answers. But when we gently shift our attention to the present moment, our nervous system begins to calm. Studies in neuroscience and psychology have shown that practices like breathing in and out and singing can reduce cortisol, the body's main stress hormone, and it can help increase those feelings of emotional well being. So singing is really powerful. If you sing, it will naturally slow your breathing, creates the rhythm in your body and helps you to feel more grounded and safe. So something as simple as singing can interrupt a worry loop and bring you back to peace. Now you may even already know this, but this is the soul Cout challenge for this week. It's it's really different when we know one thing and we actually do it. And so this is why I love encouraging you to do this practice for this week. Your soul care challenge is that whenever you want to stop but worry loope. I want you to sing and choose a favorite worship song or him you love now. It will help you slow your breathing, help your body soften, and connect your heart with God. It really works. I just practiced this myself this week, especially in the morning and the late afternoon. That's when I'm most vulnerable to those worry loops, and those are the moments when I start drifting into what if. So instead I just sang. I just went to Spotify where he use Apple music, and I just looked for some of the hymns that I love and tried to find one that I liked, and I just sang with you know whatever that song was. And then something shifted. As I sang, My thoughts focused on God his words. As I sang, my breathing was really great. My nervous is stone was calmed, and it just reduces the stress. Is just put me in a different mode and a different state. So try this, Okay, pause and sing one verse at a time, and then just notice. Notice how your body begins to settle and your heart feels held again. It'll scientifically, it'll happen, and spiritually get reconnected, and your whole heart shifts well, let's pray Jesus, thank you for being with us in every moment of need. When life feels uncertain and you see us, we're just trying to figure things out. Lord, May your Holy Spirit just gently touch our heart, tap us on the shoulder and remind us that you're right there with us. She just to rest in you, one moment at a time, help us to receive your grace in our time of need. 00:15:55 Speaker 1: Amen. 00:15:57 Speaker 2: Well, if this episode has encouraged you, share this episode with a friend and bless her this way and check out the show notes because I want to invite you to sign up for one of the soul care courses that I have for you that will help you emotionally, socially, spiritually, and physically. Those are the four areas that you'll be able to get a boost in and check it out in the show notes you'll see the links. Remember that you're loved and you're cherished. Just rest and I'll see you next time. 00:16:36 Speaker 1: Breathe. 00:16:37 Speaker 2: The stress Less Podcast is a production of Life Audio and Sale Media. If you like what you heard today, please take a second to rate and review this podcast in your favorite podcast app so that more listeners like you can find the show. For more faith filled, inspirational podcasts, visit us at lifeaudio dot com.