The Problem With Perfect

It is often our pain that fuels our passion. This is Sarah's story.

After 20 years as a TV reporter covering trauma, Sarah Hill's media diet of reporting the day's headlines ultimately had made her sick. Insomnia, forgetfulness, and anxiety culminated in terrifying panic attacks, shattering any illusion of perfection. In fact, the attacks led her down a road looking for help, where she eventually found it in the most surprising of places - storytelling.

A wife, mother, and now wildly successful CEO and entrepreneur, Sarah Hill is addressing what she calls a post-COVID mental health emergency head on. Using virtual and augmented reality, Sarah and her team have developed a clinically-validated method for managing stress and anxiety.  

If you find yourself struggling with any of these issues, please give yourself the gift of listening to this episode. Not only is Sarah inspiring and grace-filled, she offers a non-pharmacological therapy with an encouraging dose of HOPE.  

And who can't use HOPE for a better tomorrow?


SPECIAL GUEST: SARAH HILL
As recently featured in Forbes, Sarah Hill is the CEO of Healium, a virtual and augmented reality tool for human performance powered by the user's own brainwaves and heart rate. After 20 years as a TV reporter covering trauma,  Sarah developed Healium to help herself as well as the 41 million others who struggle with anxiety.  Not only is Sarah a former interactive TV news journalist for the NBC, ABC, & CBS affiliates in Missouri, she is mom to two adult children and has been married for 30 years.  

To learn more about Healium and how to get started benefiting from it, go to https://www.tryhealium.com/.

Show Notes:
4:00 Stress and anxiety impacts more areas of your life than you might realize. Listen here to learn more.

7:15 Is your media diet making you sick? 

11:00 Listen here how Sarah's work with Veterans shaped her vision to help others with insomnia, pain and anxiety.

14:50 Have you ever wondered if that feeling of dread and fear could be a panic attack?

19:00 If you find yourself feeling wobbly, listen here for some great practical advice to strengthen yourself.

24:00 Think you're productive by not sleeping? Think again. Your working memory needs sleep.

35:00 How can Healium help? Don't understand about virtual reality? Listen here to get the basics.

39:30 Think stress isn't a big deal? You'll be surprised how it impacts illness and diseases in our bodies.

Mother's Day can bring a mix of emotions, including appreciation, joy, sadness and PANIC. Whether you're a mother, a daughter or someone looking to bless a mom in your life, this episode is one you won't want to miss.  No matter what your budget, we've got you covered on ideas for making this Mother's Day stress free and affordable. Because as we all know, often the best things in life  are FREE. 

Listen in for the lessons our moms taught us, gift giving ideas and how you can help a mom around you in need. 

Show Notes:
Check out Robin’s last minute gift guide here:
https://www.robinmayministries.com/blog/lastminutemothersdaygifts

Life isn't easy. There will always be roadblocks to our success and happiness that are out of our control - making life anything but perfect.

But what if we could recognize that perhaps the biggest roadblock to our own flourishing isn't external, but rather internal? What if we could open our ears and realize the biggest voice that is holding us back is our own? 

Join us for this important conversation about how to recognize the thoughts that are sabotaging your joy and holding you back from pursuing your dreams. 

Remember when we were little and people would ask us what we wanted to be when we grew up? Somehow between here and there, we've lost sight of what we want "to be" and have replaced it with a long list of what "to do". 

In this episode, we challenge ourselves and others to ditch the to-do list and instead, consider what we want to be. Life will always be full of tasks, but at the end of the day it is how we do them and how we make others feel in the process that really matters. 

Show Notes:

What is on our reading list:
The Nickel Boys by Elwood Curtis

The Hate you Give by Angie Thomas

Under Our Skin by Benjamin Watson

American Like Me: Life Between Two Cultures by America Ferrera

Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything under the sun- including a time to be young and a time to be old. Yet growing old is hard, no matter what stage of life you’re in. 

Join us for this conversation as we discuss three reasons why growing old is difficult for us all. 

Have you ever doubted if God really cares about your pain?  Wonder if His promises can be trusted?

If so, you're not alone. 

Proverbs 31 Ministries author and speaker Nicki Kozairz knows these seasons well. Not only did 2020 bring upheaval to her life like it did yours and mine, it also came on the heels of the painful loss of her mom to a brain tumor and her brother to suicide. 

In this episode (our 100th), Nicki joins us to discuss her brand new book, Flooded: The 5 best decisions to make when life is hard and doubt is rising. Based on the life of Noah, Nicki's book and this discussion help us:

• Quiet the fear that God won't come through
• Resist the urge to control the uncontrollable
• Find the familiar faithfulness of God

GUEST: Nicki Koziarz is a best selling author and speaker with Proverbs 31 Ministries. She is a national speaker and is the host of her own podcast, Lessons from the Farm. She and her husband Kris and their three girls have a small farm outside of Charlotte, NC which they call the Fixer Up Farm. 

We all want to grow up and live happily ever after.  But the problem with this fairy tale life is that it doesn't exist. 

The reality is that our vision for a life filled with joy and prosperity doesn't include pain and suffering- which are inevitable parts of living in this world. Despite the fact that the Bible tells us not only to expect pain and suffering, but to rejoice in it, we continue to avoid it at all costs.

Join us for this episode as we discuss how this tension between fact and fiction create unrealistic expectations that set us up for disappointment. 


SHOW NOTES:

1:30 Answer this question for yourself about what your perfect life looks like.

5:45 What is missing from your perfect life that we can't avoid?

8:00 Where does our idea of perfect come from anyway? How does this contrast with different cultures?

14:00 Are parents more concerned with controlling their kid's lives or preparing them for this?

17:00 How do best intentions go wrong for parents like Robin? Is this Biblical?

20:00 Does this surprise you when it happens to you? Can you rejoice in it? Embrace it?

23:00 When you're in a trial, here's what God says you need most. 

25:30 How different would your life look if you could reset this one expectation?

27:30 Listen here to learn how to use the past to pave the future.

30:00 Can't find the words for your emotions? These two things could bring you comfort.

33:00 This tip is something we need to be reminded about daily.

35:30 Are you living for the dot or the line? Listen here to decide.


Previous episodes referenced:
Ep. 74 How to Make Peace with your Past with Psychotherapist Britt Frank
https://www.buzzsprout.com/632383/episodes/8009361

Ep. 72 Lessons I Learned from Personal Tragedy (with Rachel's Mom, Linda Schisler)
https://www.buzzsprout.com/632383/episodes/7726834

Books discussed: 
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Helen Keller once said that nothing can be accomplished without hope and confidence. 

Confidence doesn't just help us believe in ourselves, it helps others believe in us as well.  As we strive to make a greater impact in our workplaces, communities and families, how do we build our confidence? Is it even possible? If so, how?

In this episode, we offer three things confident women don't do - giving a practical picture of what confidence looks and sounds like. 

SHOW NOTES
Does confidence come natural to you? 

2:30 Do you find yourself doing this? Sorry. Not Sorry.

5:00 Rachel gives an example of apologizing for her feelings. Do you identify with her story?

7:30 If you struggle with this, here's a way to help overcome it.

9:00 Confident women don’t do this second thing. 

As believers, we know we are created in God’s likeness and as such are called to reflect his image. But that isn’t always what we really want to do, is it?

Unlike Jesus, we struggle to forgive and extend grace. We aren't curious to go have a meal with someone different than us. We don’t want to be selfless and our work to go unnoticed and we don’t like it when our love for others to come with a cost. 

Instead - since we are being honest with ourselves - we simply want to be God. We want to be the one in control and not need anyone or anything. 

Matt May joins Robin on this episode and we explore the ways this desire for self sufficiency shows up in our lives and in doing so, how it actually keeps us from experiencing the joy of relationship with God and those around us. As always, Matt’s insight is profound and he’s beautifully transparent about how his cancer taught him the value of interdependence.

SHOW NOTES:
Co-host: Matt May, son of co-host Robin and two-time cancer survivor. Matt holds an English degree from Truman State University and is currently pursuing a Masters of Education degree.  For more on Matt's story, visit www.RobinMayMinistries.com. or on Facebook.

Conversation based on Chapter 4 of the book None Like Him: 10 Ways God is Different From Us (and why That's a Good Thing) by Jen Wilkin

7:00 Is independence the same as self-sufficiency? How are they connected?

9:00 God needs nothing from us. Why is this a good thing?

13:30 Listen here for the connection between asking for help and experiencing whole living.

18:30 Are you making this life-giving activity a priority in your life? 

23:00 Matt admits he didn't want everyone to know he was a cancer survivor and this is why.

25:00 The lie the world tells us about doing life alone.

30:00 Each one of us have this special thing. Are you curious enough to find it and learn from it?

31:30 Do you find yourself consistently anxious and overwhelmed? Listen here for important, practical wisdom about how to overcome it.

34:00 Listen here for why Matt calls his cancer a "saving grace."

38:00 Are you waking up and asking God this question?

41:00 Matt hasn't ever been angry about getting cancer. But he was angry with God about this thing and the experience changed him to see "I am not on my own in my pain."

46:00 How is Matt's health as he's passing his four-year cancer anniversary?