Ep. 8 - Soul Feast - Fasting

I trust God, but I don't always trust God. Yikes, that feels vulnerable to say out loud! 

So glad you're here for a great conversation about how we are invited to a life of More (i.e., peace, love, connection) and yet, so often we find ourselves living from a place of lack (i.e., resources, time, energy). 

Grace and mercy abound as we talk about the hard stuff in our newest episode. Blessings Friends!

References: 
Kate Bowler (Blog, 2019, When Lent Prepares Us for What is Lost)
Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie (Good Enough - 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection) 
Ruth Haley-Barton (Lenten Questions) 
Psalm 23:1
Psalm 139:13

New Years Blessings Friends!  Great to be back with you for another Reclaim-App episode. For those of you who may be listening in for the first time. I’m Cari, the founder of Reclaim-App…which isn’t an App yet but I’m confident will be this year! Right now you can also find us on Instagram,  Facebook, Buzzsprout or wherever you listen to your podcasts. :) 

Our intention is to create calm and safe spaces of connection with God, our neighbours and ourselves.

I’m an ordained pastor and trained yoga teacher. My lovely friend and co-podcaster Liz, is a compassionate counselling therapist, working both in private practice and the public sphere. And our podcast aims to combine Christian spirituality with mental health and life strategies that aid in connection.

In our professions, we get asked a lot of questions, often from people seeking advice. So, today, we’re going to have a conversation around giving and receiving advice…looking at the best and worst advice we’ve received, answering some of your questions and provide some strategies…with the hope of creating clearer and calmer communication. 

References:
Brené Brown - Atlas of the Heart
Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) 
Michael Nichols - The Lost Art of Listening 
Henry Nouwen (1932 - 1996) 
John O’Donohue - For Presence - Eternal Echoes. Exploring our hunger for belonging. Scripture References: Romans 12:15, Mark 3 

As we (Liz and Cari) were sitting down to start preparing for this episode, we were both feeling nudged to have a conversation around hope. In part, because we are entering the Advent season, preparing for Christmas which is meant to be a time of hope. Yet, as we look at the world around us, hope feels fragile and the emotions of hopelessness and despair perhaps more prevalant. So, we’re going to wrestle with this tension while we wonder how to hold on to hope in a weary world. Holding the following questions loosely as we sit in this tension together. Thanks for listening! Blessings Friends. 

Questions:

• What is hope and are there different kinds of hope? 
• Is hope fragile? Or is it something we can trust and hold onto?
• Where (and maybe how) can we experience and extend hope to ourselves and our world; when we are weary, and many feel hopeless, helpless, and wrecked with despair? 

References: 
 Brene Brown - Atlas of the Heart 
 Henry Nouwen 
 C.S. Lewis 
 Job 19:25-27
 John 1:5
 Hebrews 11:1 
 Frozen 2 - song - Next Right Thing - by Kristen Bell 
 Brian Simmons - I Hear His Whisper 

Hello Friends! In this episode, we have a great conversation on a topic that can be hard to talk about. We're looking at intimacy; what it means, how we learn about it and how it plays out in our everyday lives. 

So grateful for this calm space of connection where we hold one another's stories in love. Blessings. 

Please don't forget to subscribe, like, share and donate. Thank you!

#podcast #intimacy #vulnerability

Hello Friends and Welcome to the Reclaim-App Podcast. Thank you for being here!  We’re looking forward to our conversation today on The Wisdom of Emotions/Head and Heart Connection. A favourite topic of both Liz and Cari :) 

As we begin this new podcast season, our deepest hope continues to be, creating space for connection, while experiencing faith and life together. So emotions seemed like a good place to start since emotions are something we all experience throughout our life as human beings. They immediately connect us to our “human sameness” (Henry Nouwen). And they have huge impacts on our choices, relationships, how we are in the world and who we perceive God to be.

In her chapter, entitled, Try Softer with your Emotions, Aundi Kolber helps frame our conversation today, writing, “You are not weak for having feelings. You are not less than because you react to the world around you. Your grief, joy, anger, disgust or fear does not define you, but it is a clue to what’s going on inside you - and this is where the beauty happens. As we honour our experiences, we gain more freedom to move through our emotions rather than become stuck in them.”

Through our conversation we hope to invite a relationship with our emotions. Even the hard ones. A relationship that promotes flourishing, maybe even healing. Not only for ourselves but for each other and the world we live in. Many Blessings. 

Book References: 
ACT Made Simple 2nd Ed. - Russ Harris
Permission to Feel - Mark Brackett
Try Softer - Aundi Kolber
Atlas of the Heart - Brene Brown
Gospel of Luke 22:39-46 (Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane)

#podcast #emotions #feelings

Today we start a new series entitled, Questions People Ask Jesus.
 
What’s so amazing to me is that the questions people asked Jesus over 2000 years ago are still questions we ask today. How do we live in the tension of these questions that never seem to go away?
 
In this episode we’re asking...Who Is My Neighbour?
 
Liz, beautifully helps us to understand more fully, the Imago Dei, which is the Latin translation of the English “image of God.” Or as she describes, “the immaterial or spiritual fingerprint of God on us.” So lovely!
 
We invite you to listen anywhere you find your favourite podcasts or watch us on YouTube. Blessings Friends

Episode13 - References
Luke 10:25-29, NIV
Genesis 1:26-27, NIV
James 3:9-10, NIV
Howard Thurman (1899-1981)
Prentis Hemphill
Henry Nouwen (1932-1996)

Today, we invite you on a journey through some light-hearted questions to give a glimpse into our stories - as a way to know us better.
Who are Liz and Cari? Or, Cari and Liz?

We’re going to share with you, not only a bit about who we are, but also why we do what we do and what has shaped us and our stories. Don’t worry if you’d prefer to have a conversation about the tougher stuff - we’ll be back to asking the hard questions in our next episodes.

We pray there will be moments where you resonate and find connection in this episode to our shared humanity. We are meant to do this life together and the more we share in one another’s stories, the more this seems possible, in a way that is life-giving and brings unity. 

Many Blessings Friends!

References
Henry Nouwen (1932-1996)

Hello Friends and welcome to our final episode in our Lenten Series, Soul Feast. 

We have a great conversation in store as we travel on the road to Easter this weekend; through Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.

Although this tends to be a time of year primarily marked by celebration, the first Easter wasn’t very celebratory. Rather it was quite dark and deeply painful.

Christ is Risen! We say this triumphantly, yet, as we look around at our world and the messiness of our own lives, I’m not sure how triumphant we feel, a lot of the time?

Can our souls still cling to, feel and know the hope these days are meant to point to?
Please join us! 

References
Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved
Aundi Kolber, Leaning into Hope
Brian Zahnd - Author and Pastor - Beauty Will Save the World
Philip Yancy - Prayer
Matthew 26, 27, NIV
Luke 24:13-35, The Road to Emmaus (TPT)
Romans 5:5, NIV
Psalm 22:1, NIV
John 6:66-69, NIV
John 11:25,26, NIV
Colossians 3:12, 1:27, NIV
Revelations 22:20-21, Come, Lord Jesus, NIV

In our third episode of Soul Feast, we’re exploring the ideas of guilt and confession - wondering, what is at the root of our experience of feeling “guilty”? Another way of asking this is: “What is your emotion of “guilt” communicating to you?  

"Guilt is an emotion that we experience when we fall short of our own expectations or standards." - Brené Brown

What about when our emotion of guilt is felt as falling short of God's expectations or standards?
Liz & Cari

References
Brené Brown - Atlas of the Heart
Mark McMinn - Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counselling
Richard Foster - Celebration of Discipline
S. Bruce Marramore - Religious Psychologist
Worship Sourcebook 2nd Edition - CRC Worship Planning and Leading
2 Corinthians 7:10, NIV
Luke 22:34, NIV
Matthew 27:3, NIV

In our Lenten series, Soul Feast, we’re using the dual lens of Counselling Therapist (Liz Kahle) and Christian Spirituality (Pastor Cari) in hopes of gaining a deeper understanding of what our soul is, how to become more aware of our soul, and what it may be communicating to us right now.

The basic definition we’re using for the soul comes from the work of Ruth Haley-Barton who defines the soul as the core of our very selves. Which we would add, points to our truest identity.

It’s within this context that we’re going to try to tackle the big topics of sin and shame as they are deeply interwoven into the very fabric of life, and deeply impact our connections.

Before we dive in, we’d like to take a moment to ground our conversation in the love and hope we are moving toward in this season of Lent.

Richard Foster writes,“At the heart of God is the desire to give and to forgive. Because of this, He set the entire redemptive process that culminated on the cross and was confirmed in the resurrection. The usual notion of what Jesus did on the cross runs something like this: people were so bad and so mean and God was so angry with them that he could not forgive them unless something big enough took the rap for the whole lot of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it.”

It's from this place of greatest love, and the movement toward healing, forgiveness and transformation - that we talk about sin and shame in the second episode of Soul Feast  - A Lenten Series by Counselling Therapist Liz Kahle and Pastor Cari Fydirchuk. 

References:
Richard Foster - Celebration of Discipline
Brene Brown - Altas of the Heart 
Mark McKinnon - Counselling Therapist and Christian lens 
Gregory Boyle - The Whole Language - The Power of Extravagant Tenderness 
Genesis 3:15, NIV
Genesis 1:26-28
Luke 5:16, NIV
Luke 15 - The Prodigal Son 
Ignatian Spiritual Exercises