Simply Us

This is the last episode of our Breaking Free From Body Shame content! In this episode, we interview two women (our sisters, Alyssa and Beth) who went through the small group curriculum with us. It's been about six months since we originally studied the content, and we check-in with ourselves on our current body shame outlook and reflect on our biggest take aways from the study.  We'd love to hear from you! You can email us at hello@simplybepresent.com to share with us your journey towards breaking free from body shame! 

Welcome back! During this episode, we are looking forward → What do we do now that we’ve released that shame and put on something new? In her book, Jess suggested WORSHIP. But what exactly does that look like? Where do we begin? Do I just start thinking about God every time we complete a task that honors my body? Do we simply pray before we begin a workout or get dressed or prepare our food? Does it happen one time a day or everyday? In her book, Jess describes worship as any act that allows us to be more in awe of God, more aware of God or creates a space for us to give Him praise. In this episode, we talk about how we discovered worshiping God isn’t all that complicated. In fact, it’s as simple as inviting God into our ordinary everyday lives. Praying for you on your own journey, Sue + Erin Interested in more? Check out our this month's show notes and so many more extras here! 

In this episode, my mom and I talk about RESTING from the crazy shame cycle we have so often found ourselves in. This cycle has been characterized by the shame we've felt about our bodies. Together, we share the gentle reminders we received as we stopped looking down at our bodies with shame, and refocused our gaze on the truth. We hope that this episode brings you HOPE AND TRUTH about the good body you have been given! Watch Ep 23  Read Show Notes  We love prayer and each episode of our podcast has a prayer that we hope ignites your relationship with God. We have created a few tools to help you! Watch Ep 23 Prayer Prayer Journaling Prompts This is the third installment of our Body Shame series. You can hear more about what we have to say in Ep 21 and Ep 22. This series has been inspired by the Jess Connolly's book Breaking Free From Body Shame.  We are so thankful to Jess for her guidance and direction on this topic.  We're social!  hello@simplybepresent.com Facebook Instagram Twitter TikTok

Do you remember the first time someone named your body…positive or negative? Do you remember the way it made you feel? Do you remember how it impacted your life? During this episode, we talked about the names we received about our bodies. Sue’s name was California Girls (hello, Beach Boys) and the name bestowed upon Erin was Pumpkin. We reminisced about the origins of those names. Then we took some time to reflect on how those names actually caused us to live in our false identities (vulnerable moments here)! We find hope in the power we found in leaving those names behind and finding new ones that better suited our truest selves. In the last ten minutes of the episode, we lead our listeners through a redemptive prayer. We hope that this tool will help you move past those hurtful names and memories and into things that are good, kind and true. We hope you will join us for this episode! Watch Ep 22: Shame is Not Your Name  SHOW NOTES  **Our website is experiencing difficulties – our show notes will now be available via pdf**

Episode Description:  We are back and ready to share with you an episode we never thought we would record. My mom and I were totally rocked by the book, Breaking Free of Body Shame. In this episode [It’s A Crying Shame ] It opened our eyes to some blind spots we had regarding our physical bodies and our spiritual lives. We had no idea how much we were missing out on! We realized that God wanted us to know how we viewed our physical bodies. Over the next few months, we are eager to share with you what we’ve learned (and continue to learn). Find the show notes here! NEW! You can listen/watch our podcast on Youtube here! Would you like to get more NEWS from us? You can subscribe to our monthly email. We promise it's full of good stuff!  Purchase the book here Purchase the Bible Study Guide here Meet the Author, Jess Connolly here

Join us as we interview Alyssa! She had some awesome questions about reconciliation and living with an unoffendable heart. We get really personal as we try our best to answer her tough questions.

Over the past two months, we have talked all about having an unoffendable heart. The last step towards living unoffendable is pursuing reconciliation with those who have offended you. This can be the hardest part of the entire process. This part of the process isn’t just a happy little quiet time between you and God. Oh no, it’s when you invite the said offender back into the conversation. Yikes?! In this episode, we share our experiences of reconciliation and walk you all through the steps we take in the process!

🕊 In Romans 12 is says, ...we are to do all we can to live at peace with those around us. But HOW are we to have a posture of peace when it is so easy to get caught up in our offenses?! Join us as we uncover what you need to have a heart that is continuously unoffendable. Check out this episode's show notes! 

🙋🏾‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️ Raise your hand if you felt offended by someone over the HOLIDAYS!  Our schedules and routines are all messed up, we often indulge and stay up late and probably around our family more and more…and we have probably all felt OFFENDED around our closest friends and family. So, we felt like this would be the perfect time to share with you our journey towards having unoffendable hearts. On this month's episode, we are going to share how to identify if you’ve got a heart that’s easily offended and what exactly are we to do with it! listen here:  spotify apple podcasts google Episode 17 Show Notes Hope + Truth Devotionals 

On this episode, we are talking about Unhealthy Soul ties. These are extremely close relationships that have become distorted. This stronghold leads us to become less than what God created us to be causing us to live in our false identities.  An unhealthy soul tie relationship produces lots of negative emotions including: jealousy, insecurity and an excessive need to control and manipulate.  In this episode, we talk about our personal experiences with soul ties. We take a look at some examples of healthy/unhealthy relationships in the old testament and finally, we walk through a prayer that allows us to release the lies and embrace the truth. Show Notes [FREE DOWNLOAD] Soul Ties Study WE'RE SOICAL! 

Generational sin patterns are just like our definition of sin -- wrong actions that stemmed from wrong belief about yourself or God. These wrong belief patterns have been passed along from generation to generation. These wrong beliefs may have begun as a sort of coping mechanism learned as individuals encountered tragedy or difficult things. In this episode, we discuss our own struggles with generational sin. Secondly, we take a look at a very familiar family in the Bible that passed on the generational sin for over three generations. Lastly, we pray a prayer of release as we hope to leave the wrong belief behind and discover the truth. To check out the show notes for this episode, you can visit our website at simplybepresent.com To receive our monthly newsletter, sign up here! We give the latest updates on our episode and free resources to ignite your relationship with God.

Did you know that a judgemental mindset desires consequences or punishment rather than growth for the other person. Yikes? At one time or another, we have probably all found ourselves living with a judgemental mindset. However, this isn’t what we see in the life of Jesus. Actually, when we look at John 8, we find him to be lacking in condemnation and instead pointing all people to freedom. Join us for this episode, as we explore the ways of Jesus in John 8 AND share a little bit about how we practiced moving away from a life led by judging others. If you'd like to read more about the episode, you can grab the show notes HERE!  Interested in learning about how to have a conversation with your kids about judgment? Check out our newest resource [FREE DOWNLOAD] Kids + Judging! 

Strongholds are anything that has a strong hold on your life that keeps you from an intimate relationship with God. They really distort our view of ourselves and Jesus. They keep us from living an abundant life. In this episode, we discuss the stronghold of curses. Curses are negative words that have been spoken over you that distort your view of yourself, others or God. We invited my sister, Alyssa, to join us for this conversation. She had a curse spoken over her by a high school coach that began to cause her pain later in life. It took years for her to recognize how this specific curse had been plaguing her. Are you interested in reading about the episode?  Click here to read our show notes. Would you like to take a peek into one of our journals? You can read all about Sue’s journal moving towards freedom as she uncovered a curse spoken over her during her childhood.  Read more and check out other resources here!

In this episode, we share the next two steps that we follow to continue on our journey towards becoming fearless. Through an imaginative prayer we take a look at the story told in Luke 1:5-23. Journey with us as we discover that Zechariah, a man who was righteous in the sight of God, struggled with his fears. Together, we learn that there is HOPE in not only overcoming our fears, but continuing to live the rest of our days in freedom of fear. Check out our website for this episode's show notes!  Want to check out the Imaginative Prayer from this episode? Download here! 

We find ourselves asking the question: How do we become fearless when fear seems to come as naturally as breathing!? We have found that fear is just a negative emotion that we need to bring to God. The problem is we wear it so close it's hard for us to identify. It is almost as if fear becomes a part of who we are. We can read in 2 Timothy 1:7 that fear isn’t what God had in mind for us. Instead, He has given us access to the spirit of power, love and self-control. Well, how do we access that power? First, we talk about how to identify the root cause of your fears. Next, go over a few tactics that fear uses to keep us stuck. Lastly, we practice releasing our fears through an imaginative prayer. We hope you can join us! God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Take a look at a few of our resources on FEAR:  Episode 11: Spirit of Fear SHOW NOTES [FREE DOWNLOAD] Journal Prompt: Fear  Kids and Fear BLOG POST [FREE DOWNLOAD] Kids and Fear: 4 Prayers 

Join us as we talk about our second negative stronghold that can block us from truly connecting with God. This month, we are going to talk about unforgiveness. So what is Unforgiveness? Unforgiveness is an inability to show mercy to yourself, to God, or to those who have wronged you. On the other hand, Forgiveness is showing mercy, but even more it is making a choice to see people how God sees them. Do you think we could actually get to that place where we see people, especially those who have hurt us, as God sees them? And honestly, how and would this even be possible? We can’t wait to share this episode with you!

Are you having trouble connecting with God? Negative strongholds put a wedge between our relationships with God. One such negative stronghold is self-hatred. At one point or another, we have probably listened to our inner negative critic telling us that we are too fat, not good enough or even too loud to be loved. It sometimes leads us to deep feelings of guilt or shame.  What does God have to say about self-hatred?  How do we go about moving through it?  Join us as we share the tool we use to break down this negative stronghold. Subscribe to our newsletter to get some FREEBIES we created for this episode!  Buy a MIRROR CLING we created just for this episode! 

Have you experienced something that caused you pain? During the pain, you most likely realized you also felt hopeless or powerless. Maybe you even believed and therefore felt, unworthy, fearful, shameful, abandoned, incompetent, inadequate, unlovable, unacceptable or a number of other negative emotions and lies. You guys, these lies we believe in our painful moments most times become our truth and define our reality. They can create even more brokenness and pain, causing us to become stressed out, confused, sad, depressed, angry. It's definitely not what God wants for us! How do we overcome these painful moments? How do we not let them shape us into distorted, worn out versions of our true selves? Join us for Episode 8: Taking Back What the Enemy Stole

In our last episode, we made space to talk to God about the lies we believe when we live in our false identity. We took time to give them to Jesus. As we released our lies, we wanted to make sure we fill that now vacant space with truth. God’s truth so we can live in our true identities.   Join us for episode 7 as we ask the question we are burning to know: “Who am I, God? What is my true identity?” We look forward to hearing from you as you discover the True Identity name that God has just for you.

In this episode, we are discussing our spiritual identity. Our spiritual identity is made up of two parts. The true identity, which the Bible refers to as the new man/new creation and our false identity, which again in the Bible is referred to as the old nature. In this episode, we want to discuss the false. Our false identity is an identity that we receive or take on that’s not from God. Instead, it comes from culture, our view of ourselves, and the enemy. We take a deeper look at how we move from feeling defeated by our false identity to living in the freedom of our true identity. Because on the other side of the false is always the truth.