Anchored Not Anxious

My guest Cecille Valoria was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder at just eight years old — and her journey with GAD didn't ease up for decades. It peaked during perimenopause, affected her ability to drive, and followed her through careers as a teacher, a realtor, and a devoted wife. And yet, she trusts God. Deeply. Consistently. Even in the middle of a flower arranging class while her husband was being rushed to the ER.

In this episode of the Why She Trusts God series, Cecille breaks down what trust actually means: to hide for refuge, to be secure, to be bold. She shares how her faith moved from inherited religion to owned relationship, why knowing God's character is the foundation of any real trust, and the four practical anchors that keep her tethered when anxiety threatens to pull her under.

Cecille is a Christian author, blogger, podcaster, and retired elementary school teacher. She's the author of Slaying Your Fear Giants: Moving from a Jungle of Terror to a Garden of Peace and the founder of A Simple Touch Ministry, which delivers flowers to patients, caregivers, teachers, and healthcare workers. You can find her at cecileviloria.com and on her podcast, Digging Deep for Treasures.

If you've ever been told to "just trust God" and felt like you were failing because you couldn't, this conversation is for you.

Catch Cecille's podcast on her website: Digging Deep for Treasures, 

https://www.instagram.com/valoriacecille/

Get Cecille's book - Slaying Your Fear Giants: Moving from a Jungle of Terror to a Garden of Peace.

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

What happens to your faith when chronic pain shows up uninvited and refuses to leave? In this episode of the Why She Trusts God series, I sit down with best-selling author and speaker Carolyn Dale Newell.

Carolyn opens up about trusting God as her spiritual flame flickered out during two years of debilitating pain, and how she fought — devotion by devotion — to resurrect hope when suffering and hopelessness threatened to take over completely.

Carolyn recently released her newest 30-day devotional, Embers of Endurance — a book born from her own harrowing journey through severe scoliosis, spinal fusion surgery, and the slow, disorienting grief of losing her health.

We cover a lot of ground in this conversation: why grieving the loss of your health is not only normal but necessary, how physical suffering becomes a three-front battle against your body, emotions, and faith, and why the enemy's favorite weapon in chronic illness is the what if. Carolyn shares how the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego gave her a powerful reframe — trading what if thinking for the bold, surrendered declaration of even if.

We also dig into Philippians 3:10 together and land on something I believe is true with everything in me: suffering creates an intimate, experiential knowing of Christ that nothing else can.

If you or someone you love is walking through chronic pain, chronic illness, or the long, wearying wait for healing, this episode was made for you.

Resources mentioned: 📖 Embers of Endurance on Amazon: https://a.co/d/01xNHlBl 🌐 Carolyn's website: amountainoffaith.com ▶️ Carolyn on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC126VS7qlK8MFwJgdyiqCQQ 👥 Facebook Group – A Mountain of Faith Women's Ministry: https://www.facebook.com/groups/140942697610835/

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

Ageism after 40 is real — and if you've ever wondered whether your best professional years are behind you, you're not alone. In this episode, I share two stories — including my moment of humility in the workplace — that reveal why the skill you least want to learn might be the very thing that keeps you employed, confident, and calm.

Because staying relevant isn't just a career strategy. It's a way of quieting the anxiety that whispers you're too old, too behind, too late.

You're not. And this episode will remind you why.

Something to think about. Something to pray about.

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

You were raised to handle things yourself — figure it out, don't ask, don't need. And for a long time, that worked. Until it didn't.

If you're a midlife woman wrestling with anxiety, chronic worry, or overwhelm, there's a good chance the very strength that kept you standing has quietly become the ceiling on your healing. In this episode, we're taking an honest look at hyper-independence — that deeply ingrained habit of going it alone — and how it may be feeding your anxiety more than fixing it.

I'll walk you through a short self-assessment to help you recognize your own patterns, and then we'll talk about what it actually looks like to pause self-reliance aka hyper-independence — not abandon your capability, but open a door for God to move in the places your best thinking can't reach.

There's a room in your heart where Jesus is already seated and already asking, "What's going on?" This episode will help you find your way to that table.

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

You don't have 48 hours. Maybe you don't even have 8. But what if 30 minutes could open something in your soul that years of busyness has kept closed?

In this episode, I introduce a mini spiritual retreat for women titled You Are Known: Who God Is and Who You Are to God— a three-session guided experience designed to be done in your car, your closet, a park bench, or wherever you can find a quiet corner of the world. No travel required. Just you, your Bible, a pen, and an honest heart.

Each session is designed to help you deepen your trust in God, especially when it’s hard. It creates quiet time with God, and to takes you somewhere specific: 

Who God says you are

Who God is to you, and 

How the human emotions of Jesus might be the key to finally believing He understands what you're carrying.

This one is for you if your relationship with God has felt distant, routine, or complicated by old wounds. It's for you if you've felt like God is somewhere out there but not quite here with you. And it's for you if you're ready to make space for something real.

I'll walk you through how the retreat works and share a sample from Session 1 so you can see exactly what you're stepping into.

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

Have you ever reached for something — a drink, a pill, a buzz — just to take the edge off? You're not alone, and there's no shame in admitting it. In this honest, no-judgment conversation, Terri pulls back the curtain on the complicated relationship between anxiety and the quick fixes we reach for when we just want to feel better — from alcohol and THC to prescribed benzodiazepines like Ativan.

Drawing from her own personal experience and years as a nurse, Terri shares what she's seen — and lived — when it comes to chasing calm through substances. The hard truth? The buzz wears off. The euphoria fades. And the anxiety? It's still there, waiting.

This episode isn't about labeling your choices as good or bad. It's about asking a deeper question: Are you managing your anxiety, or just escaping it for a while?

If you're ready to stop dulling the noise and start doing the deeper work, this episode is your starting point.

📍 Visit anchorednotanxious.com for resources to help you manage anxiety, overwhelm, and worry — because friend, you deserve more than temporary relief.

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

Moses spent 40 years running from fear before he ever heard from a burning bush.

And honestly? I think that's more relatable than we realize.

Because most of us don't leap from crippling anxiety straight into unshakeable trust in God. We wander through the fear territory first. We doubt. We run. We try to figure it out on our own — and we end up in Midian like Moses.

But here's what I love about Moses's story: it wasn't over. The learning territory came after the fear. And that's where something beautiful started to grow.

In this episode, I'm unpacking Moses's journey through three territories — Fear, Learning, and Growth — how you can move from Plan A (the anxious response) to a Plan B (the belief response).

Because automatic trust isn't a realistic goal for most of us. But a gentle redirect? That's something we can practice. 💛

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

One evening as I lie in bed overwhelmed by everything happening in the world around me, these words rested on my mind: Terri, you weren't meant to bear these burdens. These are mine.

Can I just say — sometimes we don't even realize how much we're carrying until we're completely buried under it.

Jesus never meant for us to hold the weight of what we cannot control. And yet here we are, scrolling, absorbing, grieving for things far beyond our reach — and wondering why our joy is absent.

This episode hits so close to home for me. I want to walk you through a simple but powerful practice: setting a daily intention. It's not a self-help buzzword, friend — it's a prescription for your mind, body, and spirit.

Intention References:

https://simplish.co/blog/daily-intentions

https://www.calm.com/blog/setting-intentions

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

You want an anxiety reducer at your fingertips, right? But how does this happen? Listen to this 4 minute episode as I explain exactly what you can do so you've got the tools in that moment of panic, intense anxiety, or invasive worry.

You can do this!

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140

If you've ever found yourself pre-mourning an ailing pet who's still alive, you're not imagining things—you're experiencing anticipatory grief. 

And if you've had someone tell you that losing your dog "can't compare" to losing a human? I'm so sorry. Grief is grief, and there are no qualifiers. 

In this episode, I'm sharing my story of losing Bosco during one of the loneliest seasons of my life, and why pet parents carry a unique kind of burden that most people don't understand. 

You'll learn why anticipatory grief actually happens and practical ways to care for yourself through one of the hardest goodbye you'll ever make. 

Whether you're watching your fur baby decline or still processing a loss from years ago, this conversation will meet you with the validation and tools you need. 

https://therapyforpetpeople.com/blog/coping-with-anticipatory-grief-pet-loss

https://www.dvm360.com/view/understanding-anticipatory-grief-in-pet-owners

https://www.lapoflove.com/blog/pet-loss-support/how-to-deal-with-anticipatory-grief

https://www.aplb.org/anticipatory-grief/

Get The Anchored Life twice-monthly email.  Discover how including Jesus in each day brings reassurance, wisdom, hope, identity, and emotional and mental rescue remedies. On hard days and in between, you can stay anchored in faith. 

Your story matters to me and I answer every email. Go to [email protected]

Visit Anchored Not Anxious. It's help, hope and resources designed for you

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.hutchinson.140