From Fear to Peace | Janet Newberry

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. Dr. Ben Edwards here. Welcome to another episode of youf're the Cure. We have a great show today because it's a testimony. I love testimonies. Medical school actually taught us to not listen to testimonies. In medicine and science, we call it anecdotal reports. If one person got better by doing a certain thing, that's just a one off, one person thing. That's not evidence. You have to have a huge double blind random control trial and then duplicate that trial and, you know, spend millions of dollars doing that. But it's the testimony of the saints that overcome that dragon with the blood of the lamb. And 10 testimonies 14 years ago in my own patience is what got me really going down this track of root cause resolution. And so Janet and Doug Newberry, new friends, new, I guess, clients, you would say, in our wellness program, they, they did the 90 day reset with one of our wellness navigators, Emily, who's my sister as well. Y' all have heard from Emily before and I've asked Janet to come on and share some of that journey of the 90 day reset. But even beyond that and what she and Doug do in the kingdom and just kind of her testimony even leading up to the 90 day. But before we bring Janet on, she reached out and wrote a really sweet letter, very impactful letter for me, a four page letter. And I was going to read just a portion of that to kind of set the stage here. So quoting Janet and Doug here in the letter. One of the things I've appreciated most in listening to you is the talking about the myself and the podcast is the way you help people look beneath the obvious problem. You have often said that cholesterol is not the real issue. Inflamed cholesterol is the issue. Lower the number without addressing the inflammation and the deeper cause remains untouched. That insight stayed with me because I began to recognize how often we do something similar in spiritual life, family life and personal healing. We address symptoms without addressing systems. We manage behaviors without asking what environment produced them. We chase outcomes while leaving untouched the conditions that keep generating them. You have re have also repeatedly said that heart beliefs matter, that true identity matters, and that the kingdom is the key. I believe you are right. Before beginning the 90 day reset, I already knew many true things. I knew my identity in Christ. I believed that love cast out fear. I understood some of the reasons my body did not feel safe. I had prayed deeply, journaled honestly, and pursued healing in meaningful ways. Yet I was still not living in peace. I still carried tension. I Could not resolve. I was still struggling to see clearly in places where I longed for freedom. What I could not yet see was that true beliefs do not automatically flourish in every environment. Art beliefs need soil. Truth needs an ecosystem. Identity needs a home. I kind of want to read the whole letter because the entire letter was amazing. Janet is amazing with words. The very first email I ever read from you, Janet, I think Emily sent it to me. I thought, wow, she's incredible with words. What is her true identity? It's going to be something about words or communicating. But, Janet, welcome to the show. That was powerful. That letter was super powerful. We started that 90 day reset honestly with the thought of, for diabetes, hypertension, some of these metabolic syndromes. If you just hit it hard for 90 days and, you know, get after the diet and the movement, the sunshine. And so when you wrote that letter, that was focused more on identity, but also the kingdom, the environment, the soil, and the impact that had on you. It was. It was amazing and awesome and encouraging for me. And that's what led me to think the audience just needs to hear your whole story. So I'm gonna invite you just to introduce yourself to the audience. Go back as far as you want to go back as far as who are you, where'd you come from and how did you get to where you are today? And obviously specifically what I just read there, we need to hash that out and how did you land on some of that and where you, where you, where are you at in your journey? But just share a little bit with the audience of who you are. [00:05:01] Speaker B: Well, it's really an honor to be here. It's fun to be here. You are a big piece in Doug and I story and in my story personally, and I think it's really fun of God to put us together in this way. And honestly, I knew my identity in Christ before I ever met Jamie Winship, before I ever listened to his podcast. I didn't know I had permission to have a unique identity in the kingdom until I heard Jamie speak that I'm going to back up a little bit and say I was born almost 64 years ago, a daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher and to a mom who was an incredible woman who struggled even more incredibly with mental illness in an era when no one spoke highly spoke of mental illness, especially in the Southern Baptist world. And. And if they did, it was connected to a lot of shame. And so I knew who Jesus was before I ever breathed my first breath of oxygen. But when I wrote my first book, I actually described him as the guy who was standing in the corner of the kitchen leaning on a mop every day when I ran in with my muddy boots on, you know, he was making a list and checking it twice. And I was the girl that couldn't ever quite get it right, no matter how hard I tried. There was a lot of fear, there was a lot of religion in my really good home. And therein lies the quandary, right? We can have really good homes, really good families, a really good mom and a really good dad. And if our home is an environment of fear, in an environment of performing, and if God is more of a judge than a good, good father, I was then, then it doesn't matter how much truth, you know. And I think I've heard you say, correct me if I'm wrong, you had somewhat of a fear based religious background. Turn, burn. I think I've heard you say those words before. Yes. And so there was a lot of my life that was spent trying to, you know, make God proud and get to heaven when I die. I didn't realize the kingdom of it, of heaven was at hand. And I remember when I first learned Galatians 2:20, you know, and that I had a new identity in Christ when honestly been. I was 50 years old when I learned I had a new identity in Christ. That I was not a sinner striving to become a saint. I was a saint who sometimes sinned and that God was delighted with me. Thank you to John lynch and Bruce McNichol and Bill Frw and the people at True Face for introducing me to that new identity. And you know, that was a revelation to me, much like the cholesterol revelation when I started listening to your teaching videos. When I first heard about my new identity in Christ, I was actually furious because I thought somebody should have told me this sooner. Yeah, my life would have been different. I had tried hard in two difficult marriages that didn't make it. My mom was still alive when, well, barely alive when I was 50. But she had struggled with mental illness and attempted suicide more times than I could count, then institutionalized more times than I could remember. And she did commit suicide at age 72. And there was so much fear, so much shame, so many lies. And just kept, we kept, just kept trying to prop up the story, hide the parts that were ugly, show the parts that are pretty, condemn the things that are wrong, fix the behaviors, make it look good, you know, keep trying to be enough. And God didn't create life to be like that. And so I met Doug about The same time. Well, actually, I met Doug. Right. Six weeks before my mom committed suicide. You don't think God had a plan for us to be together while I navigated that part of the story? Yeah. What? You've met Doug. Everybody loves Doug, and he's an amazing man on his own healing journey. And it's interesting, too. When I met him, he'd been going to counsel and seeking God and truth. In fact, his word was God. There's got to be truth out there. That's. That's all I want. I want to find the truth. And when we found out Veritas means truth, we thought, there is no accident that we found Veritas Wellness and Veritas Medical. But so I. For the last 12, 13, 14 years, I've been relishing and cherishing my new identity in Christ. Doug and I follow the Holy Spirit a lot and do some random things. About almost 10 years ago, the Holy Spirit invited us to buy an Airstream and travel America in an Airstream. And we aren't campers. That's a whole other story because I [00:11:07] Speaker A: recall you didn't even have a vehicle to tow it. [00:11:10] Speaker B: We didn't. We had two Toyotas. [00:11:12] Speaker A: Ye. [00:11:13] Speaker B: When we bought our Airstream, within 72 hours of the Holy Spirit telling us buy an Airstream. But we had a platform called at the Table with America, and our whole platform was encouraging. I had online classes. We have a ministry, John 15 Academy. We work with families to help children grow up, knowing explicitly and implicitly that God is a father who cares that we don't have to train children to live the life that Jesus set them free from. And we had been through every version. I love your story of going to conventional medicine and functional medicine and. And now healing that you just want to be out of medicine because you want everybody to be well, you know, and. And I feel like that, too, because my history was conventional education, and I was the one that could get children to pass the test. I could hang the exemplary sign on the brick wall of a public elementary school. I could get kids to perform. And then I got involved with homeschool education and private education and Charlotte Mason education. And I saw children thrive and flourish in different environments and grow up in ways that I had never seen before. And so when we bought our Airstream, I was traveling and speaking at homeschool conventions. I got an agent. I wrote my first book in that Airstream. But it was actually not a journey that we were on so much for helping other people as it was an answer to a prayer That I had prayed God, I know Jesus. I began to discover the real Jesus, not the one leaning on the mop in the corner of my kitchen. I have heard clearly the voice of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, God, for that my whole life. But I didn't know God as father. And we realized deep into our Airstream journey that we didn't know where we were going. We didn't know how we were going to pay for it. We didn't know how long it was going to last. And wasn't that just like a father taking his children on vacation? And God really was fathering Doug and Janet on that trip. But it was on that trip that we were actually parked in Louisiana. Livingston, Louisiana. And I had had two friends who followed me on Facebook within about three months of each other get really angry at me and unfriend me. You don't have anybody that ever does that to you, do you? [00:14:03] Speaker A: I don't really pay attention, so, sure. Surely not. [00:14:08] Speaker B: They said I didn't quote Jesus enough. They said I didn't quote scripture enough. And they said they didn't know each other. And two things that happened that were similar within a short amount of time. And I told Doug, I said, I need to go walk around and. And pray about this and talk to God about this and see, you know, is this from him? Is this something that I need to ignore? What do I need to do about this? And I remember sweating, walking around this parking lot in Livingston, Louisiana, RV parking lot and saying, God, am I doing this wrong? You called me to this work. Am I not pointing to you? Am I not doing this right? I said, I just want to. I. I just want to follow you. I just want to hear from you. I just need to hear what you have to say about this. And I clearly heard the Holy Spirit say this, and I can't make it up because I'm not this smart. He said, Janet, he said, I didn't call you to be a Bible teacher. He said, we need good Bible teachers, and there's good Bible teachers out there. He said, I didn't call you to be a grace teacher. We need good teachers of grace out there, and there's good ones out there. He said, I called you to put new one. Help people put new wine in new wine skins. And there's not going to be a lot of other people doing that, and they're not going to be people to compare yourself to. So, you know, if you're doing it right or you're doing it wrong, a Lot of times it's going to be lonely and you're going to be confused. He said, but I called you for a unique purpose, and I'm going to help you figure out what that means. And I was like, okay, well, thank you. And mystery. Here we are. You know, and I've been working on that revelation for a long time. But when you read that letter, Ben and I said, identity needs a soil. [00:16:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:02] Speaker B: New wine needs new wine skin. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Yep. [00:16:05] Speaker B: And when I started this 90 day journey, I knew I am a saint who sometimes sins. I know. I knew I was a child of God. Do I sometimes still live out of an orphan spirit? I do. And God is helping me with that and setting me free with that. But the more I hear you talk about the kingdom, and I've been a student of Jamie Winships for a long time. Right. And the more I began to dig in to how these truths either take root and grow or. I think somewhere in that letter there's a quote about being a salmon in a parking lot. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Yes, yes, I underlined that. That one in particular. Let me find it. Here we go. One of the clearest thoughts that emerged for me during this season was this. Knowing you are a beloved child of God while living in a closed system is like knowing you are a salmon while living in a parking lot. The identity may be true, but the environment is incompatible with flourishing. So good. [00:17:24] Speaker B: And what I discovered was. So I. I signed up. Honestly. We started watching Veritas wellness videos about two summers ago. We watched all the free ones, like, several times. And we started eating a little bit different. We better understood about hydration. I thought peace was good for me. And we have a podcast called Love Is Speaking Fearless. Our work is helping families cast out fear at home. Like replace cultures of fear with cultures of love. And so it seems that we were well on our way. I didn't pay too much attention to movement until. Until I started my 90 day reset and started. You're the pure. And as it ends up, movement is what I needed almost more than anything. But what I needed more than anything was peace. And here's what happened in my health journey about eight months ago. There were some chronic. There was some acute stress in my work life. I was doing some speaking engagements that made me more nervous than other speaking engagements. I had some opportunities to do some things bigger than other things I had done in the past. And preparing for one of those trips, I went to the dentist. All right, Traditional dentist, they always take your blood pressure. Mine is always high. It's high. At the doctor high at the dentist. I have white coat syndrome. There should be that. That should be our first question. Why are we afraid to. Why are we afraid? Why do we have body coat syndrome? [00:19:11] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:13] Speaker B: And, and at the dentist it was higher than it normally is high. And so being the person that I am afraid of having anything wrong with me, I started hyper focusing on that blood pressure reading from the dentist, knowing I was about to get on a plane, Interestingly enough, on September 11th to fly to Washington D.C. by myself to do a speaking engagement. Okay, so that's just a story that only you know the circumstances of that story. And we all know what happened on September 10th. So you know, we got the Charlie Kirk thing on the 10th and we've got September 11th and I'm monitoring my own blood pressure way too much because I'm now hyper focused on getting this perfect number and controlling my. I realized in the last eight months. Thank you Veritas. Thank you Ben. Thank you Emily, thank you God that I have treated my own body as a disobedient child. I wasn't allowed, it wasn't allowed to not be perfect. It wasn't allowed to have needs. Does that sound like someone brought up in a very religious, fear based home? And I had never stopped because my health has been good. Right? Relatively speaking, it has been good. So when I contacted my doctor and said I'm worried to get about getting on this plane because my blood pressure is high, she said, I'll give you some medicine and let's run a, some labs and see if there's anything else going on. And of course there's the cholesterol issue, which had been kind of humming along in the background, but not. And so within a few weeks I was on blood pressure medicine, I was on cholesterol medicine. I started feeling worse instead of better. Imagine that. And I ended up in the hospital in the end of October with a perforated appendix that so like my health story fell apart. And the perforated appendix kept me in the hospital for five days. My experience with the conventional medical system, first I want to say I'm very grateful they saved my life. I'm super grateful they saved my life. And there were some incredible people were part of an incredible story. But I began to see the medical side of the medical system that I didn't want to see. Just knowing things like if you're fighting inflammation, I and they give you nothing but sugar on your food diet to eat while you're in the hospital, you begin to say, are you and Yeah, I actually had my primary care doctor. When I complained about the food in the hospital, she said, janet, well, they do count on repeat patients. So I was like, are we really saying that? I mean, like, is that supposed to make me feel better? But all that to say I had six weeks of antibiotics, I had surgery, and in January, I made an appointment with Emily because I'm now feeling really terrible. A healthy person who's feeling really terrible, and mostly I'm scared of my blood pressure, and I'm scared of my cholesterol, and I can't get it to come down by myself, and I don't want to take the meds that make me feel bad. Emily just listened and gave me some suggestions. We were already in the middle of listening to all the videos, and you're the cure. I tried to prove you wrong, Ben. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Well, good. I. I need to be proven wrong if it's appropriate. [00:23:15] Speaker B: No, I tried, really, because you get so. And you're the cure, and you're telling your background and the background of the medical system and the background of heart disease. And I just thought, this can't be true. Like, somebody would have spoken up by now if we're really this bad off, you know, we're spending the most money and getting the worst outcomes, and heart disease is something that we're not navigating in truth, in the medical system. So I started Googling, because I'm taking cholesterol medicine and. And blood pressure medicine at this time, and I have a very high lipoprotein number. Lipoprotein A. And I started Googling, is what does Dr. Ben Edwards say about heart disease and is it true? And I just start searching my own stuff or whatever, and I'm like. And even Google told me that you were right. [00:24:11] Speaker A: I don't know if that's good or not. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Well, it was just like. But, you know, but it was telling me the. The American, that the heart association was not considering things like lifestyle factors, that, you know, the changes that have been improvements that are seen are more. Because people are smoking less and, you know, those kinds of things instead of really the medical community making changes. And it was in that Google search that I discovered that the prescription I was on for cholesterol was at one of the worst side effects of it. Was it made lipoprotein A go up instead of down. [00:24:48] Speaker A: Yep. Unintended negative consequences of treating a symptom. [00:24:52] Speaker B: Yes. [00:24:53] Speaker A: And that's just one of many when it comes to statins. [00:24:58] Speaker B: One of many. And so I started trusting you more. I Finished the cure. About that time, I got the email for the 90 day reset, and I said, doug, I really want to do this because I'm the kind of person that'll dig into resources and I will go on every rabbit trail for hours. And I said, I need. I need somebody who's going to guide me through this. I need somebody who's going to say, this is what you need, Janet. Let's stick. Let's set these goals based on these things, and let's do it. And so got my blood panel, had my first meeting with Emily. By this time, Doug, who's got his own medical story that's different than mine, said, you know what? I need it, too. And so, you know, we both ended up in the 90 day reset together, which was great because there's four pillars. There's four pillars for Janet, there's four pillars for Doug. And, you know, the details underneath each one of those pillars. Maybe he gets a lot of movement during the day. I get very little movement during the day unless I'm intentional about it. But the nutrition pillar, the hydration pillar, the. The peace pillar, all of it. We began working together on it. [00:26:15] Speaker A: And [00:26:17] Speaker B: when I realized that I was terrified to be sick, I had to ask the Lord, why, right? I had to say, why am I so, like, why do I treat my body like a disobedient child? Why am I afraid of having needs? And it's actually, it's interesting because on a dry erase board in my office, and I must have written this almost a year ago, there's a note that says, dear Janet. And. And it's signed, love God, and it says, you are not unworthy because you need help. You will not be more worthy when you don't have needs. So this is like a heart belief that God has been tending to for a very long time. And as Emily and I worked through this and watched what was happening with my blood pressure as we did, who knew isometric exercises were good for blood pressure, that you can teach your blood vessels to relax. What a beautiful gift that is. Yeah, right. Doug and I had each had our own little chart of things that we were monitoring each week and things that we were reporting back on. And, and one of the things in. In the nutrition pillar, like I said, we had begun on that ahead of time. We were already feeling better. So that may be really hard for people. It's not hard for us. We weren't really fluent in the superfoods yet, but, boy, are we now. And why do we think that's like A bad idea. I mean, who doesn't want to eat those things? They're real good. You know, avoiding the big three. That was something we'd been working on for a while. We're more fluent in it now. I had a great conversation with the lady at Velvet Taco yesterday about do you use seed oils in your rotisserie chicken marinade? You know, and they act. Actually, if you have these conversations, people will know what you're talking about. You've started some good conversations. But the peace pillar, I had no idea. The Love is Fearless lady, the lady who has a podcast about love. Casting out fear. I had no idea how deeply rooted my heart beliefs were and my fear. And I realized that it comes from my family. I watched the medical community and the religious community and the family community. I watched the soil in each of those communities and it's like watching that movie Common Ground or Kiss the Ground, you know, and there's a. A fertile field with COVID crop and rich organic soil. And there's the over plowed plain dirt that gets washed away with every storm that comes by. And this was my mom, right? Shame had taken. Had sucked away every nourishment in her body and every one of those systems. The medical system was a place where she experienced shame. I'm not saying they intended it to be that way, but she did. You know, the church system was where she experienced shame. The family system was where she experienced shame. A true identity can't grow in shame filled environment. And. And so in my early experiences, needing help was something that was terrifying because the people that were supposed to help you weren't really good at helping you. And I had never been able to articulate that before. There's a couple of things in my prayer journal that your listeners may benefit from. One day I wrote, there's so much my body accepts, experienced that I never tended to. I treated my body like a disobedient child because it wasn't perfect and it had needs. And I told a lot of people about Veritas. And do you know what a lot of women say when I tell them that? They say, janet, I don't, I'm not. I don't take care of my needs either because I'm scared to look at them. Yeah, I'm scared to see. I don't. I tell my doctor I check my blood pressure, but I don't really check my blood pressure because I'm scared to see it. It's so there's this whole pervasive idea out there that we know we're in trouble if we need help. [00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah. It's like you're a failure of some sort of. [00:31:24] Speaker B: You're a failure. Your worth is at stake. The people that are meant to help you. I mean, I saw what help did to my mom. It never helped, you know. Yeah. And you watch people get sick and stay sick. [00:31:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:45] Speaker B: And. And it is hopeless. And. And so you. I began the day that I wrote you that email to ask you about my lipoprotein number because I. That was the one thing that I had never, like, brought into the light. This was like six weeks into that 90 day journal, 90 day reset. Things had been going well, but my blood pressure wasn't coming down. And I was. And it's not. It wasn't even bad compared to, you know, but it was bad for me. And I was still on medication. And. But let's see where I wrote about that. I said, there is a principle in internal family systems that explains fragmentation. This way, if you leave yourself to be loved, you never believe love when it arrives. That was me and my body in a blood pressure story regarding lipoprotein A. The story of my past had convinced me that if no one talked about must be really bad. And I hadn't heard you talk about it in a video. I hadn't. I watched like 10 hours of your Q&As. Right. It wasn't on the blood panel. And so I made a lot of assumptions in my mind based on my past. And I had abandoned the needs of my body so many times that my body didn't believe love when it arrived as God's design for health and healing. That's what. That's what Veritas looks like for me. It looks like a gift of love from God because you guys shine a light on every detail you've discovered about God's design for health and healing. And I go to bed now going, well, if there's a problem, there's a solution. Because that's. I mean, honestly. But you don't hear that story in the conventional, traditional conversations about health issues. But here's the good news, because I had been in the Veritas community long enough to. I said I didn't collapse into my old story. There was enough safety. Thank you, Ben. Every video I had listened to, and I've listened to probably a hundred hours of video, every conversation, there was enough safety that I sent an email and asked a question that felt like in my body opening a can of worms that might steal my hope. So I had to decide the real Source of my hope and the real thief in my story. It is a lie that I am not safe in the kingdom. [00:35:11] Speaker A: Amen. [00:35:12] Speaker B: Safety is the firm foundation of every new lived experience in our new story, in a new place, as an heir, not an orphan. Peace is our inheritance. And our part is receiving it long enough to experience it. Sometimes just for micro seconds at a time. Because when we do, we give ourselves. When we give ourselves this experience, we will know in our being that this is what home feels like. And we will want to come back to it again and again. All that to say I have known my new identity, but I have tried to. But I have not lived in peace in the kind of peace that you talk about. Because in, in the systems of this world, there is no peace. [00:36:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:19] Speaker B: In the religious system, there is no peace. In the medical system, there is no peace. Depending on what kind of family you grow up in, there may be a lot of goodness, but there is no peace. If we're not safe to ask our hard questions, to show up with our bad cholesterol numbers and our bad blood pressure numbers and say, okay, let's not just address the symptoms of this problem, but how did God write the story so that this doesn't have to be a part of it forever? [00:36:59] Speaker A: Y. So good. [00:37:06] Speaker B: And I just. I've said the word safety in a thousand podcasts, but I don't think my body had experienced safety in the way of the Kingdom, in the way of seeing that the way God tells our health story is the way diff. Is a different story than the way the culture tells our health story. [00:37:33] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:37:36] Speaker B: go ahead. [00:37:37] Speaker A: I was just going to say it's that lens that Jamie Winship talks about. The world views, the Empire versus Kingdom, that scarcity, fear based, not enough, all that. And it absolutely, it's, it's pervasive in our culture, every system of the world that we're raised in, like you've said. And so it's just our default. And I think it's Abraham John talks about having to reboot, re reset or to default settings of the Kingdom. [00:38:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:38:05] Speaker A: Our operating system has been programmed by our upbringing, by our culture, by lots of things. And, and it's so true. You can have that true identity. But you, you haven't rebooted back to a kingdom culture mindset and you still got that Empire mindset Jamie talks about. Doesn't work. [00:38:27] Speaker B: Not the truth, it doesn't work. And we, because I think we're trying to experience a better godly story in a, in a. In the world. Story instead of in a kingdom story. I think we're trying to help people live a better way in the natural world instead of helping people live like the way in a supernatural story. [00:38:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:57] Speaker B: And that's when it began to really impact the work that Doug and I do with families. Because I've been like kind of being the functional medicine doctor of families. Not in a physical illness sort of way, but then people contact me because they got a child who's struggling and we don't help. I don't like, help work one on one with a child, but I work with a family because I've always known it's the environment. I mean, parents are smart, they know how to get results. They do good things. If, you know, if a child is still struggling enough to ask for outside help, there's something in the dynamics of that family that's affecting that child, and it is the dynamics of that family that's affecting that child's identity. I know that to be true. And so behavior is often the echo of belief. But here's what I noticed one day. So Doug and I have pages and pages and pages of our weekly checklist of, like, our personalized four pillars from the 90 day reset. And about, I don't know, 60 days in, I realized that every day Doug would look at that list and he knew how to navigate all those things during the day. And I would look at my list and, you know, some of those things were the same, some of them were different, but they were all congruent. And. And I told Emily one day, I said, emily, this is literally changing how we show up every day. Like, the. The way we're addressing our problems is the way we're living our life. And there's a lot more in that sentence than people that you might recognize when you first hear it. But the way we address our problems is the way we live our life. That's true for everyone. And that's when I began to say, okay, so I've written. I've written a book, I've written a manifesto. I've written an ebook. I've written a church curriculum. I've helped people stand in their new identity. Right. In an old story. Yeah, not intentionally, but I've helped them say, I am who God says I am. I don't have to earn it. I don't have to deserve it. I am a child of the king. I am an image bearer. God is a father who cares. And I've still been helping parents who see problems the way the empire sees problems, with a Little bit more love and grace thrown into the solution, right? That's like functional medicine. So I started mapping this out. We talked about this when we were together in Lubbock a couple weeks, weeks ago. But if I could just encourage readers when you. When you're not driving or not listen, readers. If I could encourage listeners when you're not driving to go home and fold a piece of paper so that you open it up and it has four boxes. All right? So if you fold it in half and half again, you open it up and you have four boxes. I want you to. I want you to create a story map for yourself. Because here's the cool thing. I want you to. I used to do this with my first graders when I was a reading teacher. I don't care if I was. Or with my high school students. I don't care if I was reading Quo Vadis or the Three Bears. It worked the same way. If you label those four boxes characters, setting problems and solutions, you can chart out the reading comprehension of that story. Right? Well, Ben, you're living a story and so am I. And every patient that you. And every person that listens to you is. Is. Is living a story. And what I discovered is for a long time, I saw my identity as something I needed to prove, something I needed to earn. I needed to prove my worth, especially as a believer after all Jesus had done for me. Does that sound like the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher? [00:43:23] Speaker A: Perform. [00:43:25] Speaker B: Yes. I depend on myself. I am my own source. God is a judge. My relate. You. My image of you is either you are either better than me or worse than me. Right? Every competition, comparison, always competition, always comparison. Children are defined by their behavior. Conformity is the goal. Measure up, measure up, measure up. That's the characters in the story, right? And the setting. And I borrow these words from Jamie Winship, directly from Jamie Winship. There is scarcity. So we're always going to be fighting for to have enough, right? And we're never going to have enough. There has got to be certainty. There has got to be perfection. And so I'm my own source, so I better be self focused. I'm depending on myself. My identity is dependent on me. My future is depending on me. Get. Get good grades so you can get into a good college, so you can get a good job, so you can get a good house, so you can have kids and then go to a good school. Doesn't Abraham John say that? [00:44:33] Speaker A: Yep. [00:44:34] Speaker B: Yeah. That's world culture. That's the world culture. And so when you live In a story like that, the problems are going to be exhaustion, burnout, misbehavior. Right. Relational disconnection. All of those kinds of things that parents come to me to try to help their kid with. Right. We've got. And so the solutions then for in that kind of story is to hire another expert. Right. Read another parenting book, add some more knowledge to what you're already doing, manage the symptoms, control the visible stuff, hide the stuff that you don't want people to see, even if it's hide your blood pressure numbers from the doctor that you don't want people to see. Right. There is the story that we inherited that will never give people the peace that you speak of. [00:45:42] Speaker A: Yep. [00:45:43] Speaker B: And I love what you say. You say if you get all the rest of those pillars, right, and you don't have peace, you won't be well. [00:45:52] Speaker A: Yeah. The mitochondria is designed to be bathed in peace and joy, and you can't have that, truly, unless your source, you're. You're the vine hooked up, abiding in. I mean, we're the branch hooked into the vine, otherwise it doesn't work. Everything else is stress management. It's trying to keep this thing looking right. And it's effort, it's striving, it's a [00:46:18] Speaker B: burden, it's self sourced. [00:46:21] Speaker A: Yes. [00:46:21] Speaker B: And in, in science, we call that a closed system. A closed system has no source outside itself and there's no way to release toxic stuff. Right. And so entropy is always winning. And when we look around at our culture today, our children aren't doing so well, mentally or physically. Right. People are not getting well, they're getting sicker. Our, our world is in greater conflict. Entropy is winning. But here's the thing. If we write a different story and we change the worldview and we say, I know my identity, I'm a saint, not a sinner. Right. I am who God says I am. I'm a child of the king. I have an inheritance. I'm not an orphan. God is my father. You are not my competition. You are my. You are an image bearer. Children are created in the image of God with infinite potential beyond our power of measurement. Right. That part I think we have been getting right for at least 20, 30 years in the church. At least some people have heard that. Good news. Right. But what I realized is we put that character box, that description of our identity, and we put it in that story map with scarcity and certainty and perfection. We put that salmon in the parking lot. [00:47:57] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:00] Speaker B: And identity can't take root There. [00:48:03] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:04] Speaker B: And so we're still. The problems that we have are based on the worldview we're experiencing and the solutions come based on how we see our problems. And so I thought to myself, what if we change the worldview? What if we stick with identity, the truth about our identity. But in the setting box of this story that I'm living in, what if there isn't scarcity? What if there's enough? What if there isn't? I don't have to be perfect, but what if fallibility is a gift of the kingdom? Because then I get to learn from mistakes and I get to create and discover and nobody does that perfectly right. What if mystery replaces certainty, which means God wants to reveal something new to me tomorrow. Right. I never am going to understand it all. God wants to. And if I'm free because I have enough, then I get to be others focused instead of self focused, which is a lot more peaceful than being selfish. Right. And so if all that is true and the identity is true, if I can grow up in this, then the problems in this world, you will have problems. Right? Jesus didn't say, if you get your worldview right and your identity right, you won't have any problems home free. [00:49:31] Speaker A: Say that. [00:49:32] Speaker B: He didn't say that. He said, and we never quote the beginning of that verse. The beginning of that verse says, I have come that you might have peace because in this world you will have trouble. But take heart because I have overcome the world. Let's start from a place of peace and then see our problems from the lens with the perspective of God. Let's see our problems the way God does. And when God looks at me, he didn't look at me as he didn't see my whole story the way I did. He doesn't see my money story the way I do. He doesn't see my family challenges the way I do. And because I see them too often in my old mindset, in my old identity. So now God is teaching me to see problems as old mindsets, old coping strategies. Oh, you know, lie based thinking, old heart beliefs, all the stuff that's in my prayer journal, right. All the stuff that I get to confess. Because the kingdom is not a closed system. It's an open system. I am not the source. The open system has a source that never runs out, which means it has a place to put my. I don't know if I'm allowed to say crap on your podcast. [00:50:58] Speaker A: You are. Go right in. [00:51:01] Speaker B: I have a place to dump my stuff, hide it anymore. I can Ask my questions. I can drag the stuff out into the light and I can leave it in the throne room of God. I can let the light have its power over the things that have kept me, I've kept hidden in the dark, afraid to put them in the light. And now the solutions for our problems are completely different. The solutions for our problems in the kingdom, like I, we are completely changing how we help families navigate problems and what we help them walk in for their solutions. The very first thing that we help people do is steward their terrain. Right. How you what is nourishing your soul today? Right? Because you have said it in so many videos. Your cells are meant to regenerate, right. But they need building blocks, they need amino acids, they need all the minerals and all the nourishment that are, that our modern American diet doesn't give us, Right? We need to be nourished. Right. Our soil needs the soil in our homes. Maybe our culture is not going to be perfect, but our homes can be nourishing places. Nourishing places begin to establish an atmosphere of safety. Right. Childhood is a season for growing up, not a season for measuring up. Childhood is a season for building a mature nervous system, not relying on one. And if we're going to build a nervous system and we're going to help children develop, we need to steward the terrain of our homes. There is a measuring up world that has infected our families, right. With this worldview and it, and it changes the way we see our kids. When they don't measure up, that's a problem. When they don't measure up, they're a problem. Now you and I both know that if we tra. If we looked at the root cause of that, it's because if they don't measure up, we feel shamed. [00:53:33] Speaker A: Yep. Right. Self centered again. [00:53:39] Speaker B: Well. And so God says, can I help you deal with that, mama? Can I help you deal with that, Daddy? Because he, God loves me enough, he's not going to skip me to get to my kids. [00:53:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:53] Speaker B: I can't give what I never received. Right. Worth is a gift, not a goal. And so if I'm expecting my kids to earn their place with perfect behavior, that's because I believe I have to earn my place with my perfect behavior. And so when we begin to help families see solutions as things like steward your terrain, receive what you need from God. Receive. Can I tell you, when I talk to families, that is the one word that people are more confused about than any other word? [00:54:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Nobody was taught how to do that. [00:54:35] Speaker B: No. Nobody was taught how to do that. And guess what? It is teaching me your four pillars. I mean, I can eat fresh milled bread and say I am receiving the nutrition God intended my body to have, right? I can eat those five superfoods and say this is literally embodied receiving, right? I can receive sunlight. I can receive the gift of movement. I literally learned a practical definition of receiving in my 90 day reset. Receive the beauty of God's design for your body because he has a design that works. And if you have a problem, there's, there's a way to, to deal with that from the root cause. And if you listen long enough to your Q and A, you're going to discover that not only is there one workaround, there's another workaround. There's another work around. God has built so many backup plans for healing into his design for our human bodies that we have to work really hard to screw it up. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah, you're exactly right. And I mean so Doug and I did something last night and I'll conclude with this, but we run a non profit. We have. And so people that run non profits are usually really well off financially. Would you say that's true or not true? Am I joking? [00:56:13] Speaker A: Where their friends are. [00:56:16] Speaker B: Okay, so we haven't met those friends yet. And we're still, and we're not, we're not well off financially. So God is still working on us in telling the truth about our financial story, right? And so I took the Ben Edwards version of a worldview, right? And I said, God, how do you see our financial story and how do you see the solutions to our financial story? And we created a 90 day checklist to see our financial story from God's worldview, from a place of peace, from the place of being a child of God, a son, an heir instead of an orphan. And the way we talk about our, our financial story now includes things like, I'm still learning that God's provision isn't something I have to earn or prove. My mind knows how to strive and save. But receiving feels unfamiliar, right? We say things like, what was Doug's favorite? I gotta find it. It's the way we talk about our money problems, the way we talk about our money solutions. Oh yeah. Solution Abide in safety. Regularly reorient to the reality that God's kingdom is my true address and provision flows from there, not from my perfect planning. [00:57:49] Speaker A: So good. [00:57:52] Speaker B: It's all how we see. And, and you helped me see that safety was missing in my story. And the. And therefore how do I step into the kingdom of God and experience that. And I don't think you can just teach people that truth. But I want to thank you for making a place where people can abide in that truth in their health story by listening to your videos, by talking to the Wellness Navigators, by I just want to say this as advertisement when you're a Veritas Wellness member, is it true that you can get a peace consultation without paying for it? [00:58:47] Speaker A: That's true. It's included in your membership. Yes, ma', am. [00:58:50] Speaker B: It is included in your membership. Because why? Because peace is the thing that, you know, we have to start with. But peace doesn't grow. I can guarantee you if people are having numerous peace consultations and they shut that meeting down and they walk back to in an environment that is not relationally safe, right. It is going to be very hard for that peace to take root in their heart. Right. Because the, the fear and the anxiety that has taken root in their heart makes complete sense in the environment that they're living in. [00:59:33] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a response to that environment. [00:59:37] Speaker B: It is a complete response to that environment. It's white coat syndrome. Right. Anxiety is white coat syndrome to the environment that you're living in. So thank you for creating an environment where when I showed up for my appointment two weeks ago, for the first time ever in the history of my adult life, the first time that lady took my blood pressure, it was perfectly normal in the doctor's office. [01:00:08] Speaker A: And I can praise be to God. [01:00:10] Speaker B: And I can say that because yes, I stewarded my terrain for two years and for 90 days. Yes, I started my terrain, yes, I prayed and, and let go of some toxic heart beliefs, right? And let God replace those lies with truth. But it was because you have created an environment of safety. You speak the truth in a way that we can believe it, but you say it over and over and over again in a non condemning way, in a non shaming way, in a way that makes people like me not afraid to ask questions that they'd never ask in another environment. Right? And when we can ask the hard questions, we can heal. We say that to parents all the time. Create a shame free environment in your home so your kids can ask for help when they need it. Right? Because if we can't ask the hard questions, we're not going to live in peace. And if we don't live in peace, we can't develop, we can't grow. We're going to be sick, mentally and physically and we can offer our kids a story that Jesus died and Rose again to give them. We don't have to keep giving them the life that Jesus set them free from. [01:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah, he came to give us that life more abundant, which is the quality of life that the giver of it has in the world, not of the world come out of her. Speaking of Babylon, I mean there's a way we can walk in this earth today in the physical realm, bringing the kingdom, kingdom, the culture of the kingdom of heaven into the earth, manifesting that through it's Jesus in us doing it. But that's, that's that dying to self and all that self centered performance based identity, old false identity, all that and understanding these characteristics of God's kingdom. That culture has to be in our heart, that environment that Salmon needs to get out of the parking lot back into the river. And that's what Jamie Winship is, is teaching so well in this new book that we, we talked about on the podcast. But Janet, I can just say we're out of time. But the way you brought this all full circle in such a practical example, your life, you and Doug in the way y' all have walked it out and continue to seek the kingdom first, it's just a testament. It's an encouragement for me and I know for the listeners too. So thank you for being willing to share and thank you for trusting, ultimately trusting in God, letting the Holy Spirit lead you in entrusting Veritas and Emily in the nine day reset and just stepping out in faith because your body has healed, your blood pressure is normal, you're off your medicine. Correct. [01:03:21] Speaker B: I don't take any prescriptions. My. I got pattern A cholesterol. If you don't know what that is, you need to watch. You're the cure. So no word. [01:03:33] Speaker A: Praise be to God. [01:03:34] Speaker B: My, my inflammation numbers were are good and getting better and it's just so it's peaceful to know how to steward your own health. [01:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:50] Speaker B: Yes. To be in a community that, that walks alongside you because you can't do this alone. I mean my tagline is together there is great hope and it. And yes it is the vine and the branch, but it is also the COVID crop for them. You know, it is also every single person that's walking with you. And I can't say enough about the 90 day experience or our experience with Veritas, but I really want to thank you because I know you've risked a lot to talk about problems and solutions in a different way than the traditional conventional medical practice does and you do it in a way that is not inflammatory. That is not shaming. But you do speak the truth, and you speak the truth in love. And I know it's cost you and I know it's rewarding, but thank you for risking it, Doug, and I appreciate it. [01:04:52] Speaker A: You're welcome. Thank you for that. And it takes a whole team, for sure. We have a great team behind me and of course, my wife, Jamie, and God. Praise be to God that he leads us, guides us, he loves us, and each one of us is unique, individual members of his body together corporately putting on display the manifold wisdom of God to those spiritual forces in the heavenly places. So thank you for the part. You play your true identity all you do. Janet, for people that want to get your book or follow you in any way, what's the best way to. To see more of what you're doing? [01:05:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm active. I have a website, john15academy.john number15academy.com. My first book is called Education by Design Not Default, How Brave Love Creates Fearless Learning. It's on Amazon. There's some. A lot of free materials and an ebook on our website, but I'm on. I'm pretty generous with my resources, so just reach out, email me, Janet John15academy.com and let me hear your questions or your insights or whatever. We also have a podcast, Love is Fearless. We'll have to get you on Love is Fearless. [01:06:09] Speaker A: I'd be honored. That'd be awesome. [01:06:11] Speaker B: We'll have to get you on our podcast. So thank you so much for this invitation. [01:06:15] Speaker A: You're welcome, Jan. Thank you. I know you're impacting so many lives, so it's encouraging to hear y' all's story. Thank you for sharing it with the audience and for the audience. We're recording this right now. It's mid May. Ish. And I think we're going to launch or open up some more 90 day reset slots in June, I believe. But by the time this plays, we'll probably put in the show notes or I'll add a little tagline in the beginning maybe, but those are available. Veritas wellnessmember.com's a website. We'd love to support you. Our goal is to help teach you how to not need a doctor. So we'd love to walk with you and we will be back next week with another great show. Janet, once again, thank you very much for being with us. We'll hopefully see you soon again. [01:06:58] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:06:59] Speaker A: Okay, bye. Bye.