God's Diamonds In The Ruff Podcast
Welcome to our uplifting podcast, where we aim to guide you on a journey to see yourself through the eyes of God and empower you to navigate life with this perspective. We wholeheartedly believe that you are as precious as a diamond, and it is our mission to constantly reinforce this truth.
God's Diamonds In The Ruff Podcast
#141 GDITR S5 EP 15: Healey Ikerd's Approach to Anxiety: Practical and Spiritual Solutions
How do Christians reconcile their faith with the experience of anxiety? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Healey Ikerd, a licensed professional counselor and marriage and family therapist, who shares her journey and passion for integrating biblical principles with psychological techniques. Healey opens up about her motivation behind creating a unique workbook designed to help Christians manage anxiety and worry. We explore why anxiety is so prevalent among believers and discuss the challenges of aligning anxious feelings with biblical teachings. Haley emphasizes the importance of viewing anxiety as a God-given emotion and shares how her faith has guided her throughout her mental health career.
In this episode, Healey walks us through her comprehensive workbook, which addresses anxiety from multiple angles. From goal setting and understanding brain functions to the importance of physical health through sleep and nutrition, Healey offers practical tools and techniques for overcoming negative thoughts and managing panic attacks. The workbook also integrates spiritual aspects, reinforcing one's identity in Christ and providing scriptural encouragement. Healey leaves us with an empowering message about God being a source of conviction, not condemnation, and encourages listeners to seek help and trust in Him for peace and calmness. Don’t miss this powerful and encouraging conversation!
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Hello, hello and welcome back. Learning to live in truth. We are so glad to be before you One more. Not learning to live in truth, y'all, I'm so sorry. God's diamonds in the rough. Lord, have mercy. Y'all know it's your girl, catherine, and I'm just doing the most this morning, early this morning. I do apologize, but anyhow, any who, however you want to call it, I am so glad to be before you one more time. Michael is not here, so you have me and I actually have a co host with me, amen. And she's going to get into the room here just right after I pray and introduce herself, and we're gonna have a conversation today about how we can overcome anxiety and worry. Amen.
Speaker 1:So, without further ado, we're going to go ahead and pray. So, father, we thank you so much for your grace and your mercy. Thank you, god, for allowing us this day and this time, this opportunity, father, to come before you and get into a conversation that's going to help somebody. Father, we pray for every diamond that is here and we pray even for ourselves, god, that we can be all that you desire us to be. We pray, god, the things that seem to hold us still or hold us back, god, that they would be dismissed now and canceled. In the name of Jesus, that we could go forward to do your will, order our steps in the way that you would have us to go.
Speaker 1:Father, we are so thankful for Miss Haley, god, and we just pray that you would use her here in a magnificent way that we would all leave out, encouraged and inspired. Father, we love you so much and so very grateful and so thankful. We pray that this prayer and all of our prayers are pleasing in your sight. In Jesus Christ's name, we do pray. Amen, amen, hallelujah. So we're gonna have miss hayley to come in and introduce yourself, madam, to the world and to our diamonds well, my name is hayley eichert.
Speaker 2:I am a licensed professional counselor and licensed professional marriage and family therapist, and I've been in the mental health field about 17 years. What?
Speaker 1:makes you, ms Haley, the authority or voice for anxiety and worry? Why did you write this workbook? You say you wrote a workbook about this particular topic, so can you further elaborate?
Speaker 2:Well, like I mentioned, I've been in the mental health field for about 17 years and one of the big things that people come to me about is anxiety. A lot of other things, too, people come to me about is anxiety. A lot of other things to trauma, grief, depression. But one of the things I see a lot of is anxiety, and specifically anxiety as a Christian, and so I noticed I was kind of doing the same thing with a lot of people and hearing the same sort of thing. So I just started primarily to kind of create a journal for people to, you know, write some things down and stuff, and I just thought, well, this will be helpful.
Speaker 2:Well, this will be helpful, this will be helpful, and people would often ask me to just to help them, because it's kind of embarrassing, as a Christian, I think, for people to have anxiety, because we see so much in the Bible to not be anxious, to not be fearful, to not be afraid, and so it's kind of a hard thing for people to, you know, say I'm feeling this way, that which the Bible says not to. And so I just created this mix between biblical principles and psychology to help people walk through anxiety and not get rid of it but to learn to manage it, because it's an emotion God gave us and I think it's an emotion that can, that can be used for good. I mean, I think it is good as long as it's managed well.
Speaker 2:Right so that was my primary, primary purpose for it.
Speaker 1:OK, and would you say that drew you into that field? You said you're a counselor as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I yeah, I created the book after I became a counselor, just because I was seeing it a lot. After I became a counselor, just because I was seeing it a lot, what drew me in the field of counseling was I don't I mean I can't really say specifically a clear path. There were a few things that happened that I think God just used in my life to, you know, say this would be a field and you know when, when you're a Christian, I think God puts in your heart that you want to help people, and not that that's exclusive to being a Christian, but I think that when you are, you really do have a compassion and empathy for people, and so you know God leads that in different ways in everybody's life.
Speaker 2:So this is the path that he led me on.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm a firm believer that you know that God makes us a solution to a problem for someone. I truly believe that we are a solution to a problem and not for us not to get so caught up in our particular circumstance. You know what I mean, because you know, when you think about this scripture not to be anxious and not to be fearful and all of those things well, he teaches us that principle, but it's almost I wouldn't say it's what's the word I'm looking for. I wouldn't say that it's controversial, but somebody has to become anxious, somebody has to be fearful, in order to create the solution. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we see it. I mean, why did God say it, unless somebody felt it?
Speaker 2:exactly, exactly yeah, yeah, I think that, but god says I am also the solution like I am I can give you, like by trusting in me. You don't have to be that way, even though you feel that way. Um, and I think, yeah, through, I think, and I know that a lot of people have written their own books and their own stories and share their own stories of feeling this way and how they've overcome it through Jesus Christ. So I think that, yes, he's powerful in using other people to help other people walk through this journey and learn to manage it well.
Speaker 1:Right. Would you say that the majority of people that struggle with anxiety and worry feel like they're alone?
Speaker 2:I would say, like I mentioned, it is really hard to talk about. I think Christians and non-Christians alike. I think it's hard for people to talk about in a bit. So that naturally is going to make people feel alone. But normally when you share a little bit of your story you'll hear right away that people, a lot of people, feel this way. I hear it a lot just because I'm a counselor and once people find that out that they'll kind of share that with me. And then if I tell them I have a workbook, then they really are all for that. But you know, it's not any like. God says that and jesus says that and paul says that a lot in scripture. It's because people feel that way and I'm I truly believe that fear and anxiety can be a good thing.
Speaker 2:It's one of those things that, if we manage it well, it is actually meant to keep us safe. It's meant to keep us cautious or plan for the future. So it is a good thing when used appropriately. Anything in excess is bad and if we're making decisions based on fear, if we're making decisions based in anxiety, that's not a good thing and that's going to keep us from where God wants us to be. He's given us a command or calling or something, and if we don't learn how to obey in the midst of fear, in the midst of anxiety, and trust him, we're going to miss out on some really powerful things that God has for us in our life.
Speaker 1:So how do we get your workbook?
Speaker 2:Well, my workbook is actually on Kindle and in paperback form. It's on all. You can just Google the name Changing your Feelings and it'll come up in most online bookstores. But amazon's an easy place, but yeah so, but you can get it even in the ebook. Like so I'm.
Speaker 2:I was kind of wondering like, is a workbook helpful in kindle? But I mean, as long as you have some paper beside you, you can just write this stuff out and it makes it less expensive, because sometimes you know books, like everything else, is increasing in price, and so I and that's one thing I don't want anyone to struggle with something that God will clearly help them through. So, whether you believe you need to heal from it or just learn to manage it, I know that there's hope and healing for people. So there's no reason to struggle with anxiety or fear at least in the excess amount or worry. There's no reason.
Speaker 2:There are clear principles in scripture that help us walk through those things and learn how to manage it well. So I just want people to have hope and know that God is here for us. He doesn't want us to fear. He's not condemning us for our fear or our worry or anxiety, but he wants us to be able to walk through that to where he has for us. And that's a life of peace, and doesn't mean everything's going to go well, but how to have peace in the midst of hard situations. I mean, if you've experienced a trauma or something like that, anxiety is bound to come, but it doesn't mean our life has to be ruled by that. God's bigger than all those things.
Speaker 1:You better talk about it. I know that's right and so, yeah, absolutely. And so, with your workbook, is that the only thing you cover and just, is it solely about anxiety and worry, or is it dig into other things?
Speaker 2:Well, I kind of start, I kind of created it like I do like anything I would cover in a counseling session for people struggling with anxiety. So we've got the you know goal setting part in the front.
Speaker 2:We've got a little bit about the brain, a little bit about the foundation of how to make your life mentally healthy just taking care of yourself physically, sleep nutrition, care of yourself physically, sleep nutrition, um, and then some coping skills on learning how to just cope with life, whether you use it for anxiety or not, and then learning how to change your thoughts. I've got section on panic attacks, section on um identity being created in his image, um, specifically a section on worry, and then just um, um, yeah, and then there's even a section on if you're, if you have like a phobia of how to work through that um in a practical, step-by-step way. It's called um prolonged exposure therapy, and so I've got a small section in that to help people like learn to walk through. I mean, those things are better to walk through with a counselor. But again, if you can't afford it or there are things you can do, and I encourage people to have an accountability partner as they work through the workbook, just so they can bounce things off of and to know, like, if you're going to work on a phobia of like something that you're afraid of, you want someone to help you assess whether that's safe or not. So, if you're afraid of the water but you don't know how to swim, you might need someone to tell you no, you need to go have swimming lessons first or just step in the shallow end of the pool, like something like that. Where someone can you know? We don't want people jumping in the deep end of the pool because they're trying to overcome a fear when it's actually not safe to do that. So that kind of helps people walk through that process of how to, and then tracking your anxiety and fear levels in the midst of as you begin to make small steps to work on those things.
Speaker 2:And then the very I've got some things in the back of just scripture about anxiety, scripture for encouragement, about prayer. Yeah, so it covers a whole lot. I've tried to cover everything. If someone were to come to me about count, about anxiety or worry, like everything they could possibly experience, I've tried to put in the workbook.
Speaker 2:And I do find that a lot of times when people are anxious and are having really unhealthy and anxious thoughts, a lot of that, a lot of the times you'll find that they're saying statements about themselves. So like I'm not a good mom is a very common one. So that can bring anxiety. And just raising your kids. So a lot of the times I end up working with people on who they are in Christ, who God has created them to be, because once you can kind of grasp some of that, that helps reduce anxiety a lot. You worry less about what people think, you are just focused on being in the lane that God's created for you, and so a lot of that stuff can kind of go down to the sides of you know it's not so like sometimes just working on on like identity, taking care of yourself physically Some of those things can just help anxiety stay where it needs to stay also. So this is.
Speaker 1:That's powerful. I love, I love what you're doing. It's awesome, and you know, I'm sure, that this workbook is a powerful tool to to take you out of where you were to where you are. And I say where you were because, again, I believe that when you get stuck in depression and things of that sort, it's just really you literally is like being stuck in the mud. You can't go anywhere. You know life is happening, but you're still stuck in that same place, and so we would definitely encourage you to get this workbook.
Speaker 1:As we dwindle down on our time, I wish that we had more time to conversate a little bit more about mental health, but I just believe, I truly believe, that this was like a one, two, three knockout type of conversation, haley, because it speaks right to the need. You know what I mean. A lot of people had a need, and they don't want to sit and listen to, you know, a 30, 40 minute podcast. Just give me what I need, and I just believe that God set it up. He ordained it to be this way. His plans are greater than ours, amen. So, as we close up, haley, would you give a final word to our listeners and what your message is ultimately.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, I will say that God is a God of conviction, not condemnation. So if you're feeling condemned because you have anxiety, don't because that's not of God. God does. He is bigger than any anxious feeling that you have, any worry that you have. He wants you ultimately to trust in him and there are some practical steps to be able to do that. And you know practice helps that too. You know practice helps that too. So as we lean on Jesus, he will help us walk that path of peace and calmness. And it's fine if you feel worried, but learning how to. I would just encourage you can learn how to overcome that stuff and claim rest and peace in Jesus and trust.
Speaker 1:Hallelujah, I love it. Thank you so much for being here. I certainly do appreciate you hosting with me. My, you know, my final encouraging word is to you know, not get stuck. And when you feel like you're stuck, you know, get the help that you need, because God has so much for you. He has so much for you, he has so much for you. You are a diamond, we're all diamonds in sight, and you are a child of God.
Speaker 1:You believe that Jesus died for you on that cross. Then you know, look, he gave you a new life, he gave you a new beginning, and all you have to do is choose him and walk in it and tell the devil he's a liar. You know what I mean? Every lie that he would speak to you privately or in that place when you're in darkness. It is exactly that. It is a lie, because satan is the father of lies and he's not going to give you truth. You got to go to jesus with for and with truth. Amen, and he will change your feelings, amen, so miss. So, ms Haley, would you please close us out with a prayer Amen.
Speaker 2:I would love to.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yes, ma'am. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for Catherine and Michael, as they are teaching and preaching your word to people all over the world. We thank you for that. We just pray that you continue to bless that ministry and God, for those out there that are listening and that are struggling with how to walk close to you and to trust in you, because maybe they haven't had anyone that they've been able to trust. Help them to know that you are a big God, that you love them, you're full of love and grace, and that there is no sin that they've committed. That is too big. There's no sin against them that has been committed. That is too big for you.
Speaker 2:That you heal and that's what you promise us and that, even though we have a lot of problems, lord, help us to focus on you. You are the healer and you're the one that wants to walk with us as we walk through all things. Help us to trust you, help us to lean on you and, lord, thank you for sending your son, jesus, to die for us and to just be able for us to come before you and be in your presence. We thank you for that. Help us never to take it for granted. We just pray and ask all this in your precious son Jesus name, amen.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. Thank you so much again. I appreciate you Y'all. Y'all know what y'all got to do. Go to Amazon or wherever you shop for your books, your Kindle, and find her workbook Changing your Feelings, and we're prayerfully you're going to come back with us another week for God's Diamonds in the Rough. We appreciate you. We appreciate you so much, haley, and we just wish you so many blessings in your ministry and in everything that you're doing for the kingdom. Amen, hallelujah. So y'all know what it is. Till the next time you are a diamond in the rough, amen, and we hope you'll come back with us next week. Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Have a great week, amen.
