A message from Nancy and the So What? podcast team as we bring the first season to a close.

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We’ve all been there: standing in front of the mirror, plucking another gray hair with tweezers, wondering when we got this stretch mark or when that roll got there. We’re so critical of our bodies, thanks to messages we received when we were still running around with skinned knees and gap-toothed grins: “You must be beautiful to be loved. And beautiful looks like young, thin, and firm.” How do we widen our scope of “beautiful?” How can we fight back those messages and claim the worthiness of our bodies, just as they are right now? This week, Nancy sits down with Mary DeMuth, an author and speaker who shares her long road to recovery after experiencing sexual abuse in childhood. That trauma impacted the way Mary has viewed her body throughout her life. And today, Mary and Nancy dive into what it means to be kind to our bodies at all stages. Mary leads us through the “why” of the negative messages we receive about our bodies throughout our lives, and shows that no matter what stage we’re in, we are worthy of love and our bodies are worth celebration. 

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Breathe life into your soul and find your God-given power with Nancy’s “Called to Confidence” 20-day guide. Download your FREE copy at nancyhickslive.com/featured-teachings.

Yep, we’re going there—we’re starting a brand-new series called Sex and the Whole Ball of Wax.  Listen, we know “sex” is a loaded word for many, and in this series, we’re talking about a range of issues around sex. Here’s where we’re starting: can you remember what you were taught about sex growing up? How much of the information you received did you find helpful—and how much was plain wrong, or didn’t apply to you whatsoever? And how much of that information—the stuff you actually needed—was left out?  Nancy sits down with one of her dearest friends, Dr. Cheryl Sparks, a counselor with extensive experience helping couples think through their habits and hangups around sex. With tenderness and vulnerability, Nancy and Cheryl talk through some of their earliest experiences with sex and how what they were—and weren’t—taught as kids and how that informed their actual experiences in the bedroom later as adults. They talk through the difficulty of switching from messages like “sex is bad” to “now that you’re married, charge ahead, sex goddess!” Cheryl gently helps us explore what it would look like to broaden our definitions around what’s “normal” and “successful” when it comes to sex, so that we can more easily experience the joys and intimacy the gift of sex can bring.

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Breathe life into your soul and find your God-given power with Nancy’s “Called to Confidence” 20-day guide. Download your FREE copy at nancyhickslive.com/featured-teachings.

As we close out the Faith in the Firestorm series, we hope each of us has found a connection point. We’ve wrestled with so many hard topics here—finding sanctuary, being a comfort for the wandering, moving forward and clinging to hope in the face of death. To wrap this powerful series, we’re going to talk with someone who shows us strength, perseverance and determination: author and director of faith-based partnerships at Facebook, Nona Jones. Nona lived through a childhood filled with trauma, and today she’s channeled her pain into serving and ministering others. Nona and Nancy talk through what it was like for Nona to grow up in an environment filled with abuse and neglect, how Nona found safety and love for the first time in church, and how she used her strength to launch herself into an executive role at a Fortune 100 company when we was only 23 years old—and also to create a ministry that serves women around the world. Nona shows us that we are not the thing that broke us. In fact, we are capable of anything. And with His love and power, we are unstoppable. 

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Breathe life into your soul and find your God-given power with Nancy’s “Called to Confidence” 20-day guide. Download your FREE copy at nancyhickslive.com/featured-teachings.

In some of the harder seasons of our lives, we may find ourselves asking questions, “How am I supposed to get through this?” or, “How could a good God let something so awful happen?” And when answers don’t come easily or maybe don’t come at all, we may find ourselves in a season of doubt and wandering. In this next installment of Faith in the Firestorm, Nancy talks with Pastor Sheryl Brady of The Potter’s House, who shares her own season of wandering that followed the deaths of her older sister and mother just a few years ago. As a prominent church leader, Pastor Brady felt the pressure to smile and give others hope in public, while inside she was losing her own hope and questioning how God could let her down in such a profound way. When Pastor Brady decided to take away the walls of “having to be strong” and publicly share her grief with her church community, she received an outpouring of love and support she could have never predicted. While seasons of suffering may cause us to wander, they also give us empathy for others who are going through hard seasons. And sometimes, that love quietly leads us all back to believing in a God who never leaves us to face out troubles alone.

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Breathe life into your soul and find your God-given power with Nancy’s “Called to Confidence” 20-day guide. Download your FREE copy at nancyhickslive.com/featured-teachings.

At the end of the day, we all need a space where we feel safe and known. We need a sanctuary. And as we see in the next installment of our Faith in the Firestorm series, a sanctuary isn’t always a place. As our next guest Holly Christine Hayes shows us, sanctuary can also be our people—the ones who hold us close during our darkest moments and help us crawl out of the pit. Holly is a survivor, advocate, author, and entrepreneur. In 2018, she founded The Sanctuary Project, a nonprofit that gives emotional and financial support to women who have experienced human trafficking, violence, and addiction. Nancy and Holly walk through Holly’s own journey through human trafficking, and identify how we can find safe places—and people—to turn to when we feel scared and alone. With her life and work, Holly shows that each and every one of us has the power to not only find sanctuary, but to be one for others. 

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Breathe life into your soul and find your God-given power with Nancy’s “Called to Confidence” 20-day guide. Download your FREE copy at nancyhickslive.com/featured-teachings.

Have you ever been on a boat in the middle of the ocean? Did you ever find yourself clutching the boat when the winds began to blow, and the waves began to toss the boat up and down, to and fro? In those moments, when it feels like the boat might tip over any second, there’s something holding it fast: the anchor. And in our next installment of our Faith in the Firestorm series, renowned speaker, author, and Women of Faith alum Thelma Wells reminds us that no matter what comes our way, our faith is the anchor that will keep us rooted and strong. Thelma is 85 years young, and decade after decade, Thelma’s done the hard work of breaking new ground: in the 1960s, she was the first Black woman hired at John Deere (though she was hired as a secretary, she was relegated at first to the mailroom), and in the 80s she went on to become a VP at NorthPark National Bank in Dallas, where she wrote the first book on banking operations in the state of Texas. Thelma has walked in faith every step of the way, inspiring generations of women to remember that through faith, we can be and do anything.

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Breathe life into your soul and find your God-given power with Nancy’s “Called to Confidence” 20-day guide. Download your FREE copy at nancyhickslive.com/featured-teachings.

We begin a brand-new series this week on So What? And it’s one that couldn’t come too soon, especially after the harsh year we’ve experienced around the globe: we’re talking about how to walk through a season where our faith is tested by extreme circumstances, and how we can come out on the other side. Nancy vulnerably shares about her own faith firestorm, one that she and her family have unthinkably found themselves in: Nancy’s 28-year-old son David, a student pursuing law and public policy at Harvard, has been battling Stage IV colon cancer for two years. Nancy turns to the book of Lamentations and a few moments with Jesus to remind us that lamenting is an integral part of our faith experience, and why exploring our questions and doubts is so important to our journey. She guides us through four actionable steps that have helped her as she moves through her own faith firestorm, and reminds us that our faith isn’t tied to an outcome—it’s tied to a Someone. And no matter what happens to us, God is still so, so good.

We’re wrapping up our self-care series this week, and as we’ve seen, there are dozens of ways to care for yourself, from giving yourself rest and checking in with your mental wellness, to writing down what’s going on in your head and more. We’ve got one question that, well, gets to the heart of this podcast: what truly matters to you? Today, we’re going to learn how to be a genius about the things that matter, and lazy about the things that don’t, thanks to the solid advice of New York Times bestselling author and podcaster Kendra Adachi, AKA The Lazy Genius! Kendra and Nancy talk through Kendra’s journey as a recovering perfectionist, and how taking off the armor of being perfect might feel scary, but the rewards of letting others into your life are absolutely worth it. Kendra also shares how to reframe your priorities, and why that practice helps you clear the mental clutter that’s weighing you down. Equal parts hilarious and insightful, Kendra reminds us to respect ourselves enough to embrace what truly matters to us—and to respect others for what matters to them. And when we give ourselves permission to embrace only what matters and let go of what doesn’t, we are open the door for more joy and confidence in our days.

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Breathe life into your soul and find your God-given power with Nancy’s “Called to Confidence” 20-day guide. Download your FREE copy at nancyhickslive.com/featured-teachings.

This week, we’re looking at self-care through a different lens—one that involves pen and paper. On the surface, writing down your thoughts doesn’t seem like a way to care for yourself. But time and again, it’s been proven that a daily writing practice can transform your life (even if you’re not a writer!). That’s what our next guest, author and entrepreneur Allison Fallon, shows us. As she researched her new book The Power of Writing It Down, Allison discovered that writing can help you change the way you think about a situation, tapping into an entirely new part of your brain that helps you process your thoughts without so much emotion. As Allison walked through painful divorce, she found that writing her story down and asking herself more questions took her from center to spectator, which helped her see how to move her life forward a bit more clearly. Allison reminds us that when you change the story you tell yourself about yourself, you change your life. And no matter how big or small your voice may be, your experience matters and your voice needs to be heard. 

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Breathe life into your soul and find your God-given power with Nancy’s Called to Confidence 20-day guide. Download your FREE copy at nancyhickslive.com/featured-teachings.