00:02 – Jess (Host)
If you’re new here, welcome. And if you came back, oh, god bless ya. Thank you for coming back. This is the Jesus Fix it podcast. With Jess, we talk about everything. Life it’s craziness, it’s ups and downs, cause you know what Jesus can fix it and he can handle it all. Hey y’all, thank you so much for coming back and being brave and dealing with me Again. Kayla Sanders was so nice and so kind to have pity on me and hang out with me. I feel like I have friends who are so brave enough to hang out with me now and won’t let me be solo dolo for long. No, no, but it’s cool. Hey, this season is all about change, renewal and resilience and I’m loving it and I’m here for it. So Kayla is not only my friend, she is part of the positive alternative radio family and she is stepping away from her podcast. Did you record today, or you probably recorded?

01:11 – Kayla (Host)
earlier. Yeah, we’re kind of off schedule with fundraising, but that’s okay.

01:16 – Jess (Host)
Okay, yeah, we’re all fundraising around here. Still Make your gift. If you haven’t already, okay, just have to throw that out there. But her podcast is peas and carrots. That she does with her husband and my boss, brian Sanders. Hey, brian, she’s taking a little break today and hanging out with me and we are talking about giving ourselves permission to Permission to what I have a list here about giving yourself permission and okay.

01:45
So if you’re like, okay, what you talking about? Give yourself permission? Okay. So just bear with me for a minute. And if you’ve listened to Jesus, fix it long enough. You know I’m all over the place, okay.

01:57
So remember when you were little and you were in school and you needed a permission slip for just about anything not ordinary. You were gonna get off the bus at somebody’s house, that somebody, a different bus stop, or you were going on a field trip. Your parents needed to sign a permission slip or something out of the ordinary. You needed authorization. You needed the powers that be needed to sign the permission slip. As an authority figure, you get to make the rules. You don’t need permission. You get to make the rules.

02:37
But I find myself now not taking that authority on a lot of things and I celebrated a birthday this week. Kayla, you’re getting ready to celebrate your birthday and I’m wondering if I’m the only one who starts to shy away from those things in life that I am not giving myself permission to do, and I’ll give you some examples. So, first of all, I made a little list here, and some of these things you’re probably gonna think is so silly. So, first of all, like I said, yesterday I celebrated a birthday, and one thing is to eat the cake, not just yesterday, but often Not too often, because I’ve been dieting and anybody knows that if you’re trying to eat more healthy, you’re working out, trying to watch your weight. Once you start seeing results and stuff, you kinda get on. You’re on edge. You know what I mean.

03:35
It’s like you develop this mindset of if I take one little bite, or if I do one little thing, or if I allow myself just one day to have a cheat day or to step outside of that, I’m gonna mess up everything. You know what I mean. So I just feel like I’m gonna mess something up and so I feel like I need to give myself permission to do that more often. And another thing I feel like I never give myself permission to do and this is a big one for me say no. My mom is the queen of saying no without any excuse at all, mom do you wanna Can?

04:17
she give us a class. You know, I wish it’s like For real. Mom, can you go shopping with me and sis this weekend? Or, mom, do you wanna come hang out? Let’s watch some movies, let’s just chill? No, and I’m just sitting there waiting for. No, I have laundry, or no, I’ve got something else to do, it’s like no.

04:36
So how you been, honey? What’s going on at work? I’m like what it’s just no. I always feel like I have to give you an excuse. Or if I wanna say no, but I don’t wanna just come right out and just it’d be a blatant no, I always feel like I got a sugarcoat, that no, do you know what I mean? Yeah, okay, so I’ve talked a lot. You tell me what you think.

05:00 – Kayla (Host)
Well, first of all, thank you, because I am so excited to be with you, and happy birthday again. For yesterday, I totally get it. I turned 50. So I’m sharing too much. I turned 50 last October.

05:16 – Jess (Host)
That’s a blessing.

05:17 – Kayla (Host)
And I did see it as a blessing, but I also saw it as a you need to take better care of yourself. So I did the crazy thing and joined a gym. I got a personal training. Oh, girl and I find myself being very strict.

05:33
I’m also the person that everything I eat, I’m dissecting it. Now, is this good for me? Is it going to set me back? But it’s funny. My very first thing that I wrote down is I’m going to love my body. I am giving myself permission because this body has done a lot of hard things. It’s it’s walked through a lot of hard stuff, and so if I’m going to have what my trainer calls a joy day, I’m going to enjoy it and I’m going to accept that maybe my body isn’t exactly what I want it to be, but it’s the body that God gave me. And so that was the first thing I wrote down. And then this is where I’m kind of freaking out, because maybe your mom has this figured out. She’s so smart. I’m going to give myself permission to practice healthy boundaries, which is really hard for us, and I don’t want to say it’s not hard for guys, but I think it’s really hard for women.

06:36 – Jess (Host)
Yeah, we struggle with boundaries.

06:39 – Kayla (Host)
And it’s something that, just in full transparency, it’s what therapy has been helping me to figure out what does this look like for me? So it’s kind of cool and weird that those are our first two that we both wrote down, I know.

06:58 – Jess (Host)
But yeah, I’ve talked about boundaries in my therapy and obviously it’s not working so well for me because my therapist has actually given me a whole book about boundaries and, like I said, obviously I do like take it all in, but I always end up here and I think a part of it is guilt, and I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. Yeah, it’s just, and a lot of the times I think it’s just me overthinking things, because when I go back and if so, this is classic I’ll think about it. Do you want to, or can you let me think about it and get back with you in my mind. A lot of the times I know what’s going to be a no, and when I finally go tell that person, no, they’re cool with it and it’s totally a me thing. So I don’t know. Yeah, so that is kind of crazy and I wonder if it is just how we’re wired as women to think that way. I don’t know. I don’t want to always make it like a gender thing, but I don’t know.

08:11 – Kayla (Host)
I agree and I will admit it’s something that I mean. B and I have talked about this, and he struggles with them too. I think for each of us, we have to identify man or woman what is our? Struggle with healthy boundaries and then figure out how to work on that.

08:27 – Annoucement (Announcement)
Yeah.

08:28 – Kayla (Host)
So is it that I’m a people pleaser, or is it that I’m afraid of feeling guilty? Or is it that you know the Bible tells us to love everyone. So what does that look like? I need to figure that out, because sometimes loving someone is practicing healthy boundaries. So it’s a lot of things, but yeah and B and I have both learned that for us it is different. We do have different healthy boundaries that we’re working on, so yeah yeah this growing up things hard, isn’t?

08:59 – Jess (Host)
it. It’s very hard. I’m still trying to figure it out. Yeah, I probably, should you know, have my mom come talk to us about that.

09:05 – Kayla (Host)
I was going to say we need to lunch with mom.

09:08 – Jess (Host)
We really need to get a yes instead of a no.

09:10
I know, she’ll probably tell us, no, she doesn’t. Yeah, okay. So another thing that’s on my list is to trust who I am and use my own judgment sometimes. Oh, that’s a good one, yeah, I think. See, I don’t know, if this ever happens to you, I will feel strongly about something and I will let somebody else tell me that what I’m feeling or what I’m thinking is not really how I feel or how I think, and then I make to feel so small, and sometimes I just accept it and I’m like, okay, well, maybe they’re right. I’m not saying that that always means that my intuition is correct or maybe they’re wrong, but I don’t like that. I let people make me feel small like that. You know what I mean. I do, yeah, and I don’t know what to do about that, and I know that God didn’t design us to feel that way. You know what I mean. So I’m trying to work on that.

10:17 – Kayla (Host)
Yeah. I think it’s okay to let yourself sit with. Okay. Why am I feeling this way? Because we all have our own core values, and so maybe a good place to start is ask yourself is this bumping up against my values? And is it okay to go back to center and say it’s okay that you’re there or that that’s your view on this, but I’m okay with holding my view, yeah, and this and letting yourself grow comfortable with I’m not going to shrink in this space because this is important enough to me and it’s hard.

10:53
It really is. Yeah, I read an article the other day and I’m so guilty of this, I don’t know if you ever do this I will finish in sentence and then they say something like does that make sense? I do that all the time and the article’s point was we don’t need to do that. We just we share whatever it is that is on our mind or we as women, and it was particularly like featuring women doing this predominantly. Oh, wow. And I thought, well, that’s interesting. Yeah, but we feel the need to.

11:28
And again, I love guys. I’m married to one, so let’s just get that clear. I’m not picking on them today, but we do it. I see it. I’ve started seeing it more and more since I read that article. We feel as if we have to add this disclaimer on the end, as if to say Was this a value, what I just said, or did that make sense, or did you get that? And I caught myself stopping. It’s almost as if I haven’t put punctuation on the end of my sentence because I catch myself going Don’t ask, does that make sense, just say what you have to say when you’re done so that reminds me of a meme that started circulating.

12:10 – Jess (Host)
I think I saw it at the end of last year. You know how, whenever there’s a new year, you see all of these in 2023. We’re not doing this, no more. Or in 2023. We’re putting an end to this. Well, last year I saw a meme that said in 2023, we’re not putting LOL at the end of our sentences, we’re going to say what we mean. And I’m guilty of that. Sometimes I’ve been texting back and forth with someone and they’ll say something and maybe something rubs me the wrong way and I’m trying to be passive, aggressive or something, and I’ll say something and I’m like, okay, let me soften it a little bit and put LOL at the end, but I mean that. You know what I mean.

12:54 – Kayla (Host)
Oh, you just kind of hit me on that one. Yeah, I’ve done that.

12:59 – Jess (Host)
Yeah, so I get that All right. Do you have anything else on your list that you give yourself permission to? It’s funny.

13:08 – Kayla (Host)
There are two that I think are really important to me. One is I give myself permission to change my mind, oh, even it is so good. I’m knocking on 51 in a couple of days. There are core things that I was raised to believe, and the important things have not changed. The gospel message is always going to be always the gospel message to me.

13:34
That’s not going to compromise, but there are some things that I have allowed myself to sit with. Do I believe that or do I understand that because it’s what I was raised to believe, or because what was kind of fed into me? Or is this someone else’s opinion that? I just adopted and I’m allowing myself more and more to sit with things and say is that important to me or do I want to change my mind on that?

14:05
Do I see that perhaps a little differently than I may even have five years ago. Now again, the things that should not compromise have not His word is unchanging for me, but there are things that I’ve taken a step back. There are social issues, there are cultural norms that I’ve really found myself challenging the status quo. I’m saying no, I’m not good with that anymore.

14:34
And then the other one for me and Jess, don’t laugh well, you can because you’re going to, I give myself permission to take a pass on some of the fashion fads. Oh, there you go, I love it.

14:49 – Jess (Host)
I’m just keeping it real. I love it. I’m getting too old for this. I love it, I do. Okay, first of all, on Except shoes.

14:57 – Kayla (Host)
Well, most shoes Well shoes, we could spend hours on that.

15:01 – Jess (Host)
Yeah, that’s just a whole. I should a whole podcast on shoes. You’re gonna come back come back okay, yes, this time I won’t say you’re coming back, for pity, this time was totally, it’ll be. Oh, stop, I was so excited when you asked me to do this.

15:16
I kid, I kid, no, but seriously, on the first thing, you just said growth, that’s growth I was just talking to. Who was I talking to? Was it Jackie Howard here? Or it was somebody here who was telling me basically the same thing you just said about changing your mind, about social issues and just things, of things that are going on. And you know, I think that’s growth and I think we should give ourselves permission to do that.

15:50
And it was somebody else who said their parents, their elderly parents, sat them down about some decisions they were making and they said I didn’t raise you this way, you were supposed to think like we taught you to think. And I’m just like wait a minute, think like we taught you to think. Now I am a recovering helicopter parent and I would never tell my children you’re supposed to think like I taught you to think. You know what I mean. Like we instill certain values in our children and, yes, we would like them to think how we want them to think, but you know that’s just not gonna happen. But we know truth, we stand on.

16:30
Like you said, the gospel is unchanging, but growth is growth, and that’s one thing we know for sure. And so I think you grow at the times, but you are entitled to change your mind. You’re titled to feel how you feel and think how you wanna think. That is our basic human right. We’re entitled to our own opinions If they hurt other people. You’re not entitled to hurt other people, but you’re entitled to your own opinions. You’re entitled to change your mind.

17:06 – Kayla (Host)
So yeah, you should get-. Well, hopefully, changing your mind is because you care about other people, because you care and you wanna be a decent human being?

17:13 – Jess (Host)
Yeah, yeah, so Exactly, I totally get you on that. I fill you on that, sister. So, yes, amen. And as far as the fashion, I believe that you create your own fashion. You should do what you wanna do.

17:28
And that’s one thing that I was actually thinking about, because even at our age, there is still this pressure that you dress like other people, you have to look like other people, you have to keep up with the trends, the styles, I mean even in, I think I was in the doctor’s office the other day and I opened up a cosmopolitan magazine and it had something about how it’s. The headline was actually something like how you’re supposed to dress in your 40s, and then on the next page it says how you’re supposed to dress in your 50s. And that one word got me supposed Like, what? Like, don’t tell me and I know I’m probably like being overly dramatic about this, but suppose, like, don’t tell me that. You know what I mean.

18:20
And it’s like at our age, somebody is telling us this is how you’re supposed to do it and I’m like, I don’t know. That just rubbed me the wrong way. I just feel like it’s not that it’s okay for Teenagers or 20 or 30 year old even to be told what they’re supposed to look like or how they’re supposed to dress. At any age. I think you have the right to create your own style, create your own fashion. So I feel you on both of those.

18:53 – Kayla (Host)
Yeah, I saw something that said at a certain age you should stop wearing blue jeans and you should stop, and I went what Not gonna happen? So, yeah, I mean, and this little skinny jean wore. If you love them, oh I know, if you don’t, world don’t. I’m not getting in the middle of this.

19:14 – Jess (Host)
No, I was like what is up with that? I was on Instagram and I saw this whole thing about Influencer was on there talking about I have some styles coming up for you with all the new mom jeans, because you know skinny jeans are out. Nobody should wear skinny jeans anymore. I’m like what? Yeah, like who makes up these rules? So I give everybody permission. I mean I know my word doesn’t mean anything, but I give everybody permission.

19:43 – Kayla (Host)
So we like them and we’re sticking with them.

19:45 – Jess (Host)
Yeah, wear what you want to wear.

19:48 – Kayla (Host)
Feel good about yourself, do it.

19:51 – Jess (Host)
Yes, all right. So thank you. I, I appreciate you. I appreciate you always like to wrap up with a little encouragement to try to get back on track.

20:01 – Kayla (Host)
I don’t think we we went off track today. I think we did pretty good. We did do pretty good. We didn’t even digress to shoes for very long. I mean, yeah, we’re gonna have to try this again.

20:11 – Jess (Host)
Speaking of shoes and the fellas that do listen to the podcast, thank you for sticking with us. If you’re still still here, hello.

20:18 – Kayla (Host)
Hello, I think we lost them at mom jeans, okay that’s all right.

20:21 – Jess (Host)
They have dad jeans too, and they’re they’re what they call in style and okay anyway. Yeah, so okay. Here’s your encouragement for this week’s episode of the Jesus Fixed podcast. There’s a lot of pressure out there for everyone to be like Everybody else, trying to fit in, and if you’ve ever felt that pressure to fit in, to measure up, to try to keep it together, this is your invitation to a whole new way of being today. Right now, give yourself permission to be who you really are and who God made you to be.

21:04 – Annoucement (Announcement)
They want to make you smile, sharing insights, laughter and well life from their piece of the vegetable patch the peas and carrots podcast with Brian and Kayla Sanders. Subscribe today, wherever you listen.