In Joy Life with Mattie Jackson

Would you ever imagine Miss Universe feeling insecure? Anxious? Unsure of her purpose and her worth? In her debut book, A Crown That Lasts, the stunning and generous Demi Leigh Tebow reminds us that we're not alone in our contrant struggle with right identity.

The former Miss Universe and wife of football superstar, Tim Tebow, offers us an honest and vulnerable peek behind the curtain on her own battle with waiting, purpose, and self-worth following the end of her time as Miss Universe. 

In spite of her illustrious crown and work as an entrepreneur, philanthroplist, speaker and now author, Demi reminds us how quick we are and how futile it is to define ourselves by worldly things that fall away.

Demi boldly shares biblical truth and personal insights on:

• the danger of tying personal identity to accomplishments
• discovering the truth of who we were created to be
• how to use any platform, no matter how big or small, for eternal impact

Her generous spirit, passion for the Lord, and heart for her readers are palpable. Thank you, Demi, for your vulnerability and encouragements to all of us to always and only wear the one crown that lasts.

Have you ever been told you’re too emotional? That you need to better control your feelings?

Or have you been a life-long feeling controller? Emotion pusher-downer? Do people praise you for being strong but you know deep down you’re actually just staying numb?

Jennie Allen is a NYT Best-Selling author and bible teacher, and she is finally giving us not just the permission but the sales pitch and sisterly call to embrace and untangle all our emotions. Why???

-Because God made them (even the “bad” ones)

-Because emotions are tools that inform us and connect us

-Because when we reject hard feelings, we miss out on the joyful ones too

-Because naming, feeling, and sharing our emotions is the pathway to peace

Need more convincing? Jennie herself claims to have lived much of life as a “fix-it” girl rather than a “feel-it” girl. But in the years of living through the struggles and practical strategies her book offers, she is a walking testimony for the depth, peace, and richness of life that comes when we do the brave work of untangling our emotions.

Follow Jennie here! https://www.instagram.com/jennieallen/

Order Untangle Your Emotions: Naming What You Feel and Knowing What To Do About It here! https://www.amazon.com/Untangle-Your-Emotions-Naming-Knowing/dp/0593193415

Have you seen this meme before? The one that always says something along the lines of: “adulthood is the cycle of constantly saying, I just have to get through this week, over and over again until you die”? Do you laugh or want to scream when you see it? Why have we allowed exhaustion and depletion to become the status quo? Should it be? And is there any realistic way to slow things down?

We don’t have all the answers. But this week, we’re talking about the practice of pruning – what it means and how it’s helped us apply some small adjustments, or cut backs, to life’s taxing cycle of demands. A few questions for you to consider as you look at what to prune from you own life right now:

What causes me to accept living in this exhaustion/depletion cycle?

What’s the why behind my yes to this commitment?

Who am I investing in who’s no longer investing in me?

What do I need to stop “should-ing” myself about?

Where can I reset my expectations of “above and beyond” to a realistic “good enough”?

These are just a few of the filters Shannon and I are working to set up in our lives to help us prune spots of excess. Yours will certainly be different and unique to your family, your schedule, your season. The bottom line is, we all run greater risk than we realize when we don’t practice occasional pruning. I love how the necessity of pruning grapevines in winemaking applies so aptly to us as well:

“Left on its own, a grapevine will sprawl and spread itself out, huge crops can ripen unevenly and usually result in grapes that lack the intensity of flavor needed to make great wine.”

Sound familiar??? What filters can you put in the place to do a little needed pruning as we move into this summer season?

Have you ever done a fast? It’s not incredibly common in our culture anymore (unless it’s giving up something for Lent or a juice fast to drop a few quick pounds, it seems!). Well, it’s an age-old practice that pastor and author, Darren Whitehead, can save us from our phones.

https://www.instagram.com/darrenwhitehead/

The 40-day digital detox started a year ago with his Franklin, TN church congregation either fully or partially fasting from all apps not considered utility on their phones. (So yes, you can still work and call/text!). And it was an overwhelming success! They’ve now done it multiple times, and Darren is giving us the inside scoop on the program in his new book, The Digital Fast: 40 Days to Detox Your Mind and Reclaim What Matters Most.

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Fast-Detox-Reclaim-Matters/dp/B0CQD95HG6/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qd9yqmvJ6NE9ijyqqDmiLdpUMskrvkeAgOjwpj2xrm2czkTnKA8zDb3IlVbkulTjqF-ucKlK5eGOVD0Y-MSnS6cff_w_S8yekHAnuEYKTWE.n3BjnYH6B-ET-nNl4nZ-iw_gBe6kYrgQcKp0RYqC1aQ&dib_tag=se&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwxeyxBhC7ARIsAC7dS3_6J-f9KELoV4upgizDsgoAAWZgW9bfjpbSAl5UvttHD7u-fm-abaMaAqSNEALw_wcB&hvadid=693190154324&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9013186&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=2766643418922460592&hvtargid=kwd-2281601668473&hydadcr=22594_13493210&keywords=the+digital+fast+darren+whitehead&qid=1715203206&sr=8-1

Darren’s major concern is that “our smartphones are now taking from us more than they’re giving to us.” Yikes! But it’s so true. And the beautiful outcome of this fast for nearly all who’ve embraced it is restored time and attention and joy. Darren reminds us that these devices, while a necessary and helpful tool, have gone from something we have mastery over to things that have mastery over us.

Do you want to reclaim your time? Your attention? Your focus? Your joy??? Don’t throw out your iPhone, but do embrace the millennia’s old practice of fasting, the point of which is to put something aside in order to pick something more life-giving up. What would you have room to enjoy, to pick up again, if you put down your phone for a detox?

See more resources from Jonathan Haidt here https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jonathan-Haidt/author/B001H6GAXW?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

This week’s guest is speaking my language on every level!! He’s been studying joy as a pastor and researcher for 5 years and, in his words, “mining the book of Philippians for joy for 27.” As a But Randy Frazee’s mission is not just to teach us about joy. He’s here to teach us how to build our joy muscles; how to, as his new book The Joy Challenge’s subtitle assures: discover the ancient secret to experiencing worry-defeating, circumstance-defying happiness. Who doesn’t want that??

Randy walks us through the spiritual, the scientific, and the practical of seeking and sustaining life-changing joy. Not just temporal happiness, but a lifestyle and mindset of joy despite our circumstances, our people, our pasts, and our greatest worries. Randy draws ancient wisdom from the apostle Paul in Philippians as well as modern neuroscience and physiology to give us a full picture understanding of how our minds and spirits work together to lead us into lives of daily joy.

Follow Randy here https://www.randyfrazee.com/

Get The Joy Challenge book here https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Challenge-Experiencing-Worry-Defeating-Circumstance-Defying/dp/0718086163

What if the dreaded, unexpected thing in your life is actually the beginning of becoming your truest, most flourishing self?

This is Jillian’s story. This is my story. This is all of our stories at some point in life if we learn to yield to the God who redeems EVERYTHING. After receiving a life-altering diagnosis for her unborn son, Jillian Benfield faced not just unmatched grief as a young mother, but also a dismantling and rebuilding of all she believed, in her faith and in her overall worldview of personal value and worthiness.

Overcoming her unexpected circumstance wasn't an option. She would have to undergo it instead. She would learn to find God’s goodness in a situation that she couldn’t qualify as good. She would discover who she truly was and who God was leading her to become.

In her own transforming journey through the challenges of the unexpected, Jillian proves how many good gifts seasons of grief can offer. In her book, The Gift of the Unexpected, she helps you break down the false constructs you've built around God and your identity. You won't avoid your pain, but you'll learn to feel it, in a healing way. And you'll discover how your internal transformation leads to external purpose.

I’d be willing to bet you’ve found and are listening to this week’s episode on your phone, right? So let me start by saying – phones are not evil! But we’re lying to ourselves if we don’t admit their power to addict, distract, and ultimately steal from many of life’s joys given the CONSTANT connection and attention most of us give them. Did you know…?

91% of adults have their phone within arm’s reach all day, every day.

63% are trying to limit screen usage somehow but struggle to do so successfully.

This week’s guest has fallen victim to constant phone absorption, as we all have, but he is offering us a solution. Joey Odom, co-founder of the Aro box & app, is bringing us the first solution designed specifically for families looking to reduce screen time and increase quality time together. The beauty of Aro? They’re not calling us back to flip phones or swearing off technology – they’re a tech company after all! Their ultimate purpose is to give us the tools, structure, and the emotional investment necessary to reset our relationship with our phones, and thus, reprioritize all the other relationships that have been suffering as a result of our devices.

There’s no shame here. Just the courage to face a tough reality along with a much needed, real solution. Thank you, Aro!

Well friends, this is the one either you’ve been eagerly waiting for OR the one that scares you the most to open 🤪. This week, we’re talking all things marriage and intimacy. This was obviously such a gift for me as Connor and I approach our first anniversary next month, but Lindsey’s work as a marriage and intimacy coach, writer, and podcaster serves those in any and every stage of marriage.

Over her past decade of working with women, she’s curated 3 online courses to help us enrich specific life seasons that often need a little extra TLC. The Wife Project: From Roommates to Soulmates, The Sex & Intimacy Project for Couples, and The Modern Proverbs 31 Woman course all stem from her passion for thriving, God-centered relationships and are rooted in her own decade plus-long marriage as well as her work alongside women and men far ahead in years and wisdom.

I love her because she is a beautifully and confidently open book. Anything you’ve walked through, wondered, or struggled with, Lindsey likely addresses with us or on her podcast, the Living Easy podcast. No one sits down with Lindsey and leaves feeling alone. Her heart is for all of us to walk in rich, flourishing relationship, and she’s here to help us do just that.

Follow Lindsey

https://www.instagram.com/livingeasywithlindsey/

Check out all Lindsey’s courses here

https://stan.store/lindsey

I couldn’t ask for a more perfect guest for Easter week than Molly Stillman. Her debut book, If I Don't Laugh, I'll Cry: How Death, Debt, and Comedy Led to a Life of Faith, Farming, and Forgetting What I Came into This Room For, releases TODAY and is a start-to-finish witness that God is always working to redeem our messes.

From the tragic loss of her mother at age 17, to incurring and digger her way out of a mountain of debt at 21, to thoughts of ending her own life, Molly chronicles her “emotional, financial, and spiritual rock bottom” for readers with the ultimate hope that they never give up hope for their own stories.

As a former improv and sketch comedian, our conversation is all that it implies – big laughs and occasional tears, all rooted in her since found unshakeable foundation of faith. More than anything, Molly wants YOU to know that YOUR STORY has power, potential, and endless kingdom purpose in the hands of the God she knows and loves. No one is too far gone. Nothing is beyond redemption.

Do any of these exasperating statements sound familiar to you?

That really was the last time.

I’m going to do it differently than they did.

I can’t keep letting this affect me.

I’ve got to move on.

Me too. And this week’s guest’s personal story and his life work is to help people like you and me get past our pasts. Jason VanRuler is a liscenced therapist, coach, and speaker working with clients from high-level business execs and artists to those transitioning out of incarceration. And the one thing he sees we all have in common: the tendency to let our pasts rob our present and threaten our futures. 

Jason is kind. He is wise. And he is so generous to equip us with the tangible ways to start actively working through the parts of our story we continue to feel or fall victim to. And the best part of all of this? When we learn how to get past our broken past, it leads to greater connection – with our loved ones, with ourselves, and with all the goodness around us.

Follow Jason

Order Get Past Your Past: How Facing Your Broken Past Leads to Connection