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Picture this: a skeptical, bacon-loving, Hebrew-speaking Jew, embarking on a quest to explore faith after a transformative 100-pound weight loss and a series of "quarter-life crisis".
It began with a whisper in my heart: "I think I might want God?!"
But not wanting to go back to the old days of temple and rabbi sermons, I found a non-denominational church in vibrant Nashville, TN that turned into a miraculous journey that filled a void in my spiritual landscape and met ME in my skepticism, doubt, and curiosity in all aspects of life.
All of a sudden this "God guy" that everyone ELSE was talking about that I had never met, and frankly never cared to meet…
...suddenly appeared to ME --and revealed, completed, and healed parts of my story I didn't even know needed attention.
When life gets hard, does what we think we believe hold us up, or does it crumble under the weight of doubt? I'm your host, Dr. Lee Warren- I'm a brain surgeon, author, and a person who's seen some stuff and wondered where God is in all this mess. This is The Spiritual Brain Surgery podcast, where we'll take a hard look at what we believe, why we believe it, and the neuroscience behind how our minds and our brains can smash together with faith to help us become healthier, feel better, and be happier so we can find the hope to withstand anything life throws at us. You've got questions, and we're going to do the hard work to find the answers, but you can't change your life until you change your mind, and it's gonna take some spiritual-brain surgery to get it done. So let's get after it.
Good morning, my friend. Dr. Lee Warren here with you for some spiritual brain surgery.
I'm so excited to be presenting you with part two of Leanne Ellington's takeover of the mic.
You met her last week. If you missed part one, go back and check it out.
Without further ado, here is the incomparable Leanne Ellington with her story
of how she found hope and healing through science and faith smashing together.
Leanne Ellington, take it away. way. This is the Spiritual Brain Surgery Podcast,
where we take a hard look at what we believe, why we believe it,
and how science and faith smash together to help share it, defend it, and live it out.
You can't change your life until you change your mind, and spiritual brain surgery
will help you get it done. So let's get after it.
And I'm your host for today's episode of Spiritual Brain Surgery.
My name is Leanne Ellington, and I'm honored that Dr.
Warren asked me to be here and share my journey as a Jewish gal who had no connection
to God or faith, but neuroscience actually led me to the Lord.
And that's one of the reasons Dr.
Warren asked me to share my journey of how science and faith smashed together for me.
So if you missed part one of this tale where I shared how a bacon-loving,
Hebrew-speaking, science-loving Jew went looking for God, definitely check that
out because it will connect a lot of dots for this episode.
And so we're going to continue the story as I share how I dipped my toes into
Christianity and got to know this guy called Jesus.
And spoiler alert, it completely changed my life.
So I'm actually going to pick up about a year after my first church service.
So I found myself sitting in the office of Pastor Kevin Queen,
the lead pastor of Nashville's Crosspoint Church.
And I was sitting there with Pastor Kevin and his wife, Ree,
holding an envelope with $500 dollars in cash in it.
And I didn't know what the money was for or why I had it. But there I was. And there it was.
And this wasn't our first encounter. In fact, I'd met Kevin several times before that.
And after he found out that I was a curious Jew just dipping my toes into Christianity,
like that's literally what I told him when I first met him.
He had offered several times to chat and support my journey,
but I wasn't ready until I was ready. But.
I promise I'll get to that. Now, keep in mind that after my first church encounter,
I was totally intrigued and something massive was shifting inside of me,
but I still had Jesus and Christianity and even God at an arm's distance.
And it makes sense too, right? Like it felt like a whole new language and culture.
And we had essentially only been on our first date and I wasn't ready to give
my life over to God as I kept hearing people talk about.
And as I mentioned in the last episode, language is everything.
And so this idea of there being a guy, a historical figure called Jesus, that was okay with me.
But at this time, him being my Lord and Savior, well, that was the part that
still felt a little weird.
And honestly, I just didn't get it. Like, what did that even mean?
And that wasn't the only thing. There were other concepts that didn't fully
resonate with me yet just either.
So specifically this idea of having the Holy Spirit living within me and,
of course, having Jesus save me and to follow him.
So this is where the story continues. And I swear I can't make this stuff up.
And all I can do is smile and give all the glory to God.
So about a week after my first church experience, a friend of mine had told
me that the Goodwill across the road from my neighborhood had a huge selection of books.
So I walked across the street to browse and I don't want to say that a book
fell off the shelf at me like it didn't literally fall off the shelf,
but it's kind of like it was peeking its its head at me and all of the other
books agreed to just stand down so that I could only see that one.
And so I pulled it out and it was called Let Your Spirit Guides Speak.
And so at this point in my exploration or my experiment, trying on this idea
of spirit guides actually felt like a great first step to see if that connected
me to this idea of connecting with this idea of the Holy Spirit.
And once again, I just told myself that the God that I'm getting to know,
he doesn't care how I get it or what I call it right now. He just wants me to get the message.
So I bought the book and I gobbled it up that very day. It was a very short
book and easy to read through in one day.
And as I finish it, I noticed that on the back cover, it mentioned that it was
written by the same author that wrote a book called The Only Little Prayer You Need.
So I went and Googled the author, Deborah Engel was her name,
to look for that only little prayer that I needed because I was super curious
to know what that one little prayer was because I'm all about baby steps and
the idea of prayer was such a massive concept to me at the time that if somebody
went and deciphered the only little prayer that I needed, I wanted that prayer.
So after some Googling, I realized that the prayer was so elegant in its simplicity.
It said, please help me heal my fear-based thoughts about X.
Please help me heal my fear-based thoughts about X. Thanks for watching!
So I grabbed a three by five note card and I wrote that little prayer on one side of the card.
And I remember just staring at it and soaking it in. And then I just tried on
this idea that what if I do have spirit guides that if I could just,
you know, tune into them and they would help me, they would lead me.
And again, everything was me just trying something on. Right.
And I was just using my imagination and trying this stuff on to see how it felt
like that's literally how my faith walk started.
And when I tried on that little prayer, the first things that came up to me
were and this This is where I'm just going to be straight up and totally vulnerable.
The first thing that came up for me was, please help me heal my fear-based thoughts
about being alone the rest of my life.
I also saw, please help me heal my fear-based thoughts about money and security.
And then the third one was, please help me heal my fear-based thoughts about
stepping into my purpose and using my God-given gifts.
So those were the three that really came up for me at first.
And so I wrote those three things on the back side of the card and I went up
to Shelby Park, which is this beautiful park down the road from where I lived
in Nashville at the time.
And I rented a bike from our bike share program and I just got on the bike and
I rode and I rode and I rode.
And so riding at Shelby Park wasn't anything new to me, but as I was riding,
all of a sudden I saw this left-hand turn that I'd never taken before.
So I decided to take a left and I just kept riding until all of a sudden I was
riding up this massive hill. I was out of breath.
And at the top of the hill, I ended up on this bridge that overlooks the Cumberland River, okay?
Now, I had been to this park so many times, but I never ended up on this road or on this bridge.
So I walked my bike out to the middle of the bridge and I got off and I just
stood there and I stood there and I just stared over the water into the rocks
that were like alongside of the river.
And I just started speaking to my spirit guides, as I was calling them at the time.
And now, I mean, I can look back and tell you I was talking to God, right?
But it wasn't this planned thing at all. It just sort of happened.
And I just started saying something along the lines of like,
hey, I can't see you and I know we've never met, but I want to know you and I want to hear from you.
And this in itself was another leap of faith because I had never done anything like that before.
Like, I remember being surprised by myself and I can't explain it,
but immediately I just felt the spirit there.
Like, I felt like my spirit guides, again, as I was calling them that at the
time, I just felt that they were there. And now I can look back and see that
it was the first time I remember feeling God.
And so I proceeded to just say that little prayer out loud.
I said, please help me heal my fear-based thoughts about being alone the rest
of my life. And please help me heal my fear-based thoughts about money.
And please help me heal my fear-based thoughts about stepping into my purpose
and using my God-given gifts.
And once again, I just felt my newfound spirit guides there.
I felt this rush come through me that I had never experienced before.
And again, I can't fully explain it, but this peace just came over me.
And for the first time ever, I felt the presence of God.
Okay. And God didn't just seem like this thing that was so far away from me
that everybody else had access to.
I felt like I finally had access, like I felt God.
And again, it's a feeling that I can't necessarily describe,
but I'm doing my best right now to describe it to you. but I stayed on that
bridge overlooking the river for a while until I just kind of felt like a little
nudge. I was ready to head on back.
But I was feeling totally high, right? Remember, I had just felt God.
So I got back on my bike. I started to ride back to where my car was parked.
And on my way, I noticed that there was a family stopped in the middle of the
sidewalk. And it turned out that they were looking at a couple of deer.
So I got off my bike and I stopped to marvel at the deer because I jokingly
say deer are my spirit animals.
So I'm standing there and eventually the family left. But I stayed there and
I was just kind of staring at the deer and having him stare back at me.
And deer, they usually run away pretty quickly, right?
But this one, I swear to you, after a few minutes of silence and staring,
it actually took a step towards me.
And we had this moment and it was really short because another biker kind of
whooshed by and scared the deer and he ran off.
But I had this moment with this deer. And once again, I felt God, okay?
Now I get it. I know you can give any story, any meaning and this is the meaning
that I chose and I'm choosing to give it, but this is what happened for me and
how I experienced it, okay?
And before that, I never had a deer walk and take steps towards me,
but this day a deer did that, right?
And that's when I was just like, you know what? What do I have to lose, right?
What if I started believing in God and believing that if the nervous system
and the human brain can make me believe in miracles, then why can't God show
me that miracles exist too?
And what if I started believing in this idea that I don't have to carry around
all of my old residual shame stories anymore and believing that I'm here for
a purpose and that God has my back and that even when I'm technically alone in this world,
I'm never alone in this world because I have this ever-present spirit that is
protecting me and watching over me and lives within me.
And again, this is the story that I decided to try on And it's a story that,
again, as a Jewish girl, I was never given this story or any story like it to try on.
And in fact, you know, my family growing up, I might have even been made fun
of or shamed for it. Right.
But there I was, and I decided to try it on for myself to see how it all felt.
And I know to anybody who's a nonbeliever, it might seem crazy or fantastical
or whimsical or whatever.
But from that day on, my life was never the same.
That day at the park with my spirit guides, which I now know was God, with that deer,
that was a defining day because that was the day I decided to give my life over
to the Lord, even if I wasn't sure what the heck that looked like or how I was
supposed to do that. Right.
But from there on out, that's when I threw myself into faith.
I wasn't in a rush to figure out what that meant, to be honest,
as I was still confused, as I'm sure you can imagine.
And I wasn't rushing to put a label on it or call myself a Christian or anything
like that, because keep in mind, I wasn't just confused.
I was still navigating my own skepticism and doubt.
Right. That stuff didn't magically go away. way. So the story that I told myself
at the time was I was just simply a Jewish girl, woman, gal,
who was really, really, really, really curious about Christianity.
And I was just dipping my toes into Christianity and getting to know this guy called Jesus.
Because as soon as I started doing just that and learning and exploring and
seeking, my heart opened and my heart softened.
And I became open to something extraordinary that I hadn't been open to before.
And I would even go as far as say I was now truly open to miracles because now
I have this peace that came over me that had no logical reason to be there.
Like it was truly peace beyond my own understanding.
And like I said before, I couldn't science my way through it to explain it. Right.
So of course, that made me want to learn more and dive in deeper.
But because I had a strong belief system and a very solid sense of my own identity
from all the self-image work I'd been doing on myself and myself and my body
image the 15 years prior to this, I wasn't just looking to believe in something
because I thought I was air quotes supposed to. Right.
I really needed for it to resonate completely within me.
So for the next year, I immersed myself in everything.
And I mean, totally like I essentially became this student with an insatiable hunger.
And so I went to church every Sunday. Sometimes I would double dip and go to two services.
I found out that they had these things called open prayer, which anyone could
come on Tuesdays and pray and get prayed over and worship.
So I just started scheduling them into my week and making them non-negotiable.
And when I started going, like I had no idea what I was looking for.
And sometimes, honestly, I would just go and sit in the back and cry because
I was just in this massive surrender and, you know, just so emotionally raw.
And the three things that kept coming up for me were, please help me heal my
fears that I'm going to be alone the rest of my life.
And please help me heal my fears about money and security and please help me
heal my fears that I'm not gonna step into my purpose, like my true God-given purpose.
Even though unbeknownst to me, I already had and already was.
But those were the three things I started with. OK, and it's at that open prayer
that I met Kevin Queen, the lead pastor.
And I didn't go up to him right away. But one day I finally got the courage
to go up to him and introduce myself and just say hi and thank him.
And he asked me, like, hey, how long have you been coming across point?
And so I just answered him very honestly and openly.
And I was like, actually, a few weeks. You know, this is my first church and
you're my first pastor and I'm actually Jewish. And I literally told him that
I was just dipping my toes into the whole Christianity thing.
Like those were the words I was using.
And he was totally down with that. In fact, anyone that I met,
I was transparent about who I was and why I was there.
And honestly, it was also probably a bit of a defense mechanism because inside
I was also super confused and probably felt like a bit of an imposter.
I mean, here I was so fascinated by the principles of Christianity,
but I also kind of didn't believe in some of the big things yet that make up Christianity.
Like I mentioned this idea of Jesus, you know, or the idea that Jesus was more
than a historical figure, I should say. Right.
So I think I led with, hey, I'm just dipping my toes in to see what it's all about.
And, you know, probably half secretly hoping that no one would find me out and
half hoping that they wouldn't try to convert me or save me or anything like
that, because, again, I didn't know anything about anything.
And you know what? Nobody cared. Nobody cared that I wasn't fully there yet.
And no one cared that I was just there and showing up and present and soaking it all in.
And no one was trying to save me or convert me. And no one was trying to,
you know, do anything that was forcing, persuading, trying to twist my arm.
It wasn't like that. Right.
And honestly, everyone I met was just so excited for me that I was there and
that I was taking this journey at my own pace. place.
And Pastor Kevin was no different. When I met him that day, he was just so excited
for me. And he asked me a little bit about myself.
So I shared that, you know, I'm Jewish, but it was never a religion or a connection
to God and that I speak Hebrew when I lived in Israel, but I'm seeking surrender and I'm seeking faith.
And I just laid it all out there. And I'm not sure if I even made any sense
that day, but he immediately understood.
And he even offered to give me support that anything that I needed,
he's like, hey, if you want to talk or meet, or if you have questions about
the Old Testament versus the New Testament.
And I think I literally told him that I didn't even know anything about the Old Testament.
So that wasn't going to be a problem. But regardless, I started this conversation
with Kevin that was coming from such a place of freedom and exploration and
no pressure and no judgment.
And he just let me be where I was because honestly, that was exactly what I needed.
I needed to be able to give myself permission to just be there and explore, right?
Nothing definitive. I don't need to draw any conclusions just yet,
like just freedom to explore.
And so I just kept diving deep from there. And so fast forward a couple months later.
Now, by this point, I'm at church on Sundays, sometimes more than once.
I joined an amazing woman's group on Monday nights, which was totally blowing me away.
And the leader, Gina, she was such a kind and loving and welcoming mentor to
me. And she was also so supportive of my own discovery process.
I was going to those open prayer sessions on Tuesday that I mentioned.
Oh, yeah. And I got involved at the Dream Center on Wednesday nights where you
hang around and And you mentor middle school and high school students and the
leaders at the Dream Center.
They were also an amazing support system for me as I was figuring everything
out and exploring my faith.
So, yeah, like I said, I was all in. I was totally immersed and it was transforming
me to my core like I could feel something shifting and I can't fully explain
it, but it was almost like I was being transformed and like brought back to life.
And again, it's so hard to explain, but that's how it felt. And I truly believe
it was because as I was immersing myself in all of this, but I I wasn't,
you know, trying to make rules or, you know, decide what any of it meant.
And I wasn't trying to determine whether or not I was a Christian or Jewish
or if I was a good Jew or a bad Jew or anything like that, because I'm sure
if I did, my mind would have wandered. Right.
And I wasn't rushing or honestly even interested in labels, because honestly,
that's part of what stressed me out,
like trying to put what I was experiencing in a box or give it a name.
And part of why it was so transformational was because I was just giving myself
permission mission to explore and not give titles or labels and just connect
with God and practice faith, like which was still new to me and figure out what that even meant.
Right. And at this point, I didn't know about this childlike wonder concept
that the Bible talks about, but that's truly what it was.
I felt like a little kid exploring a new world and I was just loving it. OK.
Meanwhile, though, something massive shifted in my stressless eating program
and the women coming Coming through stressless eating, they were getting even
more insane transformations.
And I could sense I was showing up differently in my work, too,
because there was this new definition of unconditional love and unconditional
acceptance that I was operating from.
But it also opened the doors to conversations about their spiritual life that
wouldn't have been possible before my own faith walk.
And now, you know, of course, if they invited me into that piece of the puzzle,
we could explore how faith was influencing their relationship with food.
Or maybe it was lack of faith, right?
And their relationship with their bodies. And we can incorporate that into the
rewiring their brain process as we fired and wired new patterns.
And because the core of my stressless eating program is about self-image and
identity, and now I have this whole new picture of what identity even meant,
but also it was no longer just a self-image conversation, right?
It was now about seeing myself through God's eyes and the image that God has
of me, which was new to me at the time, right? Right.
So it was like self-image through God's eyes, which was totally blowing me away.
And so now all of a sudden, the life transforming results that my clients were
getting were magnified by the ability to go on a spiritual journey in the process,
as in, you know, realizing that a lot of the struggles my clients were facing
were, yes, about the wiring in their brain that never got unwired and rewired,
but oftentimes they were also facing a spiritual battle.
And so now I got to fuse faith with neuroscience to create even more impact in my work.
And it wasn't long before I noticed that the only little prayer that I needed,
and honestly, the only little prayer that I really knew how to pray at the time
was actually working, right?
The prayer to God, asking him to heal my fear-based thoughts about stepping
into my purpose and using my God-given gifts.
Suddenly, I had this knowingness that I was like, I knew it in my bones. There was no question.
And that's when I realized that the work that I was doing was not just my business,
but but that it was God's business, that it was my God-given purpose.
And I was stepping into purpose. And that was one of my unanswered prayers that
was really right under my nose the whole time, right?
But it had already been answered and was continuing to be answered, right?
But it was so much more than that. The more that I was able to be compassionate
with myself and love myself through the eyes of God and find even deeper layers
of self-love and self-acceptance, like the kind of acceptance that is there,
even in the deep, dark corners of your own shame, right?
The more I could receive that, the more I was able to receive that kind of unconditional
love and unconditional acceptance.
But then I was able to give it back to my clients and invite them into deeper
levels of self-love and self-acceptance and grace, right?
And that's what I meant when I say that there was still some residual shame
and self-love that I couldn't kind of personal develop my way through, right? Right.
I now know that I needed God to help me fill those gaps.
So, yeah, needless to say, it was a big year. I could go on and on and on.
But my first year of, you know, just dipping my toes into this story and this
picture of God where I looked at it like I was literally just trying on this framework.
And we're just like you do in any new relationship.
I was just getting to know this guy called Jesus.
And so I tried on a new framework and I tried on scripture from the Bible,
even though that was definitely and still is a journey in itself.
But reading things like Romans 12 and hearing terms like the renewal of the
mind and trying on this idea of having the mind of Christ,
all of that even further solidified how the Bible supported and aligned with
what I know about modern day neuroscience and vice versa. They informed each other, right?
And so I also surrounded myself with people that were already,
air quotes, following Jesus, right, to see what this idea of following him actually looked like.
And I just immersed myself into that, right?
Meanwhile, my experience at church and in groups, like it was all amazing.
And like I said, nobody was trying to convert me. They were just glad that I
was there and they were so excited for me and happy for me.
So this went on for about a year, but little did I know things are about to accelerate.
Okay. OK, so fast forward to October 2018.
So this is about two weeks before I'm in Pastor Kevin's office with $500 in
cash in an envelope, which I promise to get to in a minute because that's where things got crazy.
But I was part of this business strategy group and a mastermind,
and I was in Atlantis for an event with them.
And while I was there, I had I guess I'll call it a personal download if you want to call it that.
Right. I had this revelation that ironically, I was at a business conference,
but it was a personal revelation that the relationship that I had been in for
the last six months was just not the relationship for me. It wasn't making me happy.
And one of the reasons was because not only did I not feel like he really saw
me, like he didn't appreciate the things about me that aren't involving like
looks or success or any of that superficial stuff.
Right. But I also just felt like we were in such a different places in our faith.
And just being on this trip away from home and having that awareness,
that was a really big deal to me because I'd never cared about that in previous
relationships before. for. Right.
But it wasn't just that I cared about it. It was all of a sudden this really,
really important thing for me to share with my partner.
OK, but here was the icing on the cake. OK, so I was kind of having this vulnerable
chat with a friend about more or less my dissatisfaction with my relationship. Right.
And she asked me like the pivotal question that changed my life.
She asked me, so does he love Jesus?
And I immediately replied with like, oh, yeah, he's a Christian.
And then she was like, wait, wait, wait. no, that's not what I asked.
I asked, does he love Jesus?
Okay. And this is when my mind started doing backflips. Okay.
Not only did I realize that, no, he didn't love Jesus, but it's the first time
that I realized that I did.
Like I loved Jesus, like for real, I loved Jesus.
And that, well, that was something I never, ever, ever thought or felt,
let alone said out loud. I loved Jesus and he loved me, right?
That was a first for me. And that was the first of so many realizations about
just how much this past year had shifted my heart and shifted my identity.
And for whatever reason, going to that business meeting was just the catalyst
for what was about to happen.
So I got back home and I immediately broke up with my then boyfriend,
but I also dropped out of that business mastermind realizing that my business
didn't need any more business makeovers, right?
I just needed to fully own and step into the idea that God gave me my gifts
and my struggles and my suffering for a reason and to just go use that.
OK, and then the third thing, and this is the part that hit me like a ton of
bricks, and it's really the hardest part of my journey to explain or put in words.
But that's when I realized that I hadn't fully surrendered, but that I was really
ready to like now I was like, OK, now I am ready to surrender,
like truly let God lead me. And for lack of a better way of saying it,
let Jesus take the wheel, right?
For whatever reason, all of the cynicism and skepticism and all of that keeping
Jesus at an arm's distance that I had been doing like during the last year of
immersing myself, all of a sudden that was all gone, okay?
And again, it's so hard to describe, but it's kind of like my faith caught up
with my experiences and my spirit caught up with what I'd been soaking in,
but I've really probably just had a wall up about, right? Right.
But now I was ready to tear down the wall and stop trying to do it all on my
own and feel all alone in this world.
And I was finally ready to let God in.
And it was kind of like all of a sudden I understood what it meant to give my
life over to Jesus and to follow him and to really love him.
And again, it's so hard to put into words, but I really can't say it any other way than that.
It wasn't something that I was looking for or trying to create either, right?
I was perfectly happy just experimenting, but it came over me like a flood, totally unexpected.
And I know the exact date and time in October of that year and where it was
and where I was when it happened.
And I'll never forget it because that was the day I truly gave my life over
to God and I gave my life over to Jesus, okay?
And that day in October, ironically, was the day that things got really, really dark.
For me, like really, really dark. OK. And so I know some people have this full
surrender moment and they come to Jesus and it's roses and butterflies.
But for me, it was like all of my old stories of shame and fear and self-condemnation
came and hit me like a wave.
It's like I was purging sorrow and sadness years of it. Right.
But I also felt renewed at the same time. It was such a weird mix of emotions.
But the best way to describe it is it was kind of of like a purge,
like a spiritual detox or something.
And this honestly lasted for close to a month. And then after about four weeks
of that, the wave of darkness subsided and I started kind of feeling the fruits
of my surrender, like the clouds were lifting.
And the week after Thanksgiving, that's when I reached out to Pastor Kevin with
the subject line, Shalom, telling him that I was ready to take him up on his offer.
And even though I was still kind of in it, I I essentially told him like, OK, I'm ready to talk.
And I don't remember exactly what I said in the email, but I can only imagine
I was probably a blubbering idiot, like telling him about the dark places I'd
been in my deep surrender, but that I was in and the blinders had been removed from my eyes.
And he messaged me back pretty immediately and said he'd be happy to meet with me.
And then he shared that he had shared a bit about my story with his wife,
Rhi, and he wanted to know if I would be cool with her coming to our meeting as well.
And I was ecstatic. I was obviously so excited because I felt like I knew her
because I had seen her so many times at those Tuesday prayers and I saw her
on stage at church and, you know, but to have her there with me felt like such a gift.
I was just over the moon to get a chance to sit down with both of them.
But this is where the story gets really crazy. OK, so we set up a time to meet
on a Tuesday before that Tuesday prayer.
And so that Monday I was working out at the gym inside my complex,
my apartment complex. And remember, I was still coming out of my funky darkness. Right.
And I just remember that I suddenly felt this wave of anxiety and scarcity,
followed by this hyper awareness.
Like I was suddenly so aware of like, oh, my gosh, I am in victim mentality
and I'm focusing on problems and what I don't have and what's not working in my life. Right.
And now I look back and I know that was the enemy just doing what it does best. Right.
But bam, I immediately felt prompted to recite out loud the part that felt relevant
from the only little prayer I needed. I said it out loud.
I was like, God, please help me heal my fear based thoughts about money and security.
And in that moment, it was like I had this wave rush over me of clarity, but also gratitude.
Like I had this moment where I was like, OK, Leanne, it like snapped me out of victim mode. Right.
I was like, you have this amazing home, this apartment you're working out in
the gym in your apartment complex. Right.
You have this amazing life. You're finally feeling the gifts from God.
You're stepping into your gifts, but you're feeling all of this scarcity. Like what gives?
And as soon as the distinction became clear to me and the realization that what
I was experiencing had absolutely nothing to do with my actual experiences or my current reality.
And that like literally it was all in my head.
I had this wave of what I can only describe as the Holy Spirit rush over me.
And I just heard $500, okay?
I saw it or I heard it. I'm not really sure, but you know, it might've been
both, but it was very specific. And I heard or saw $500.
And then I got another wave or flash or whatever you want to call it.
And the next one said single mother.
And so there I am. And I'm like, $500, single mother. Like, what the heck is that supposed to mean?
So I decided to just roll with it. Okay. Cause I'm like, Hey God,
I'm listening to you. So I went to the ATM.
I took out $500 that I really didn't have to spare at that time,
but I put it in an envelope to take with me to Kevin when I was meeting with
he and his wife, Marie the next day.
And I kid you not that very night, the floodgates to my business opened and
little did I know that my financial troubles and my debt were about to become
a non-issue, you, but that's another story for another time.
But so the next day I went to Kevin's office and before we sat down to talk,
I said, hey, I don't know who this is for.
I've never done anything like this before, but this envelope has five hundred dollars in it.
And I feel like it's supposed to go to a single mother.
And then I wanted to say, like, it's not for Christmas presents or paying it
forward at Starbucks or anything like that. It's for a really big need.
And Kevin immediately said to me, he goes, I think I know exactly who it's for.
And so he went on to tell me about this woman named Celine and her family who
they just moved here from Africa.
Their number got called in the lottery to immigrate to the U.S.
And she had four children. They were 12, 10, 7 and 2 at the time.
But she was also pregnant. She had her fifth child on the way.
And so her husband, who had a job set up and was just waiting for his social
security card to come through so that he could start working.
In the meantime, he found opportunities to volunteer. And so one day he was
out volunteering and he was killed in a car accident.
OK, tragically, suddenly, traumatically, he was killed in a car accident.
So there she was, the single mother, a widow now and about to give birth to her fifth child.
And she barely spoke English. She was new to this country. And I can't even
imagine what she was going through. OK, but despite all of that,
Kevin told me that she just had like joy radiating throughout her and she was this amazing woman.
And so he told me about her and I was like, yes, give it to her.
I want her to have the five hundred dollars.
And he was like, well, I mean, I can give it to her. Or would you like to give
it to her? Would you like to meet her?
And I was like, hey, isn't this stuff supposed to be anonymous?
I mean, I had no idea how this worked. Right.
And he was like, no, it doesn't have to be like, would you like to meet her?
And I was like, yeah, let's do I would love to meet her. So he set me up with
this woman, Donna, who in Nashville, she takes care of all of the refugee families in Nashville.
And he set me up with her to give them the money. And so we chatted and we had
arranged for me to go over there on a Saturday and give them the money,
just kind of like a surprise. Selene had no idea what was going on.
So Friday, I was walking at Shelby Park, the same park with the bridge and the deer incident.
And I got a call from Donna. And
she was like, hey, I know you're a new believer and you might not know.
Like, I've never experienced miracles like this, but like, this is what he does.
These are the kinds of miracles that only God can do. OK.
And she was basically like, OK, you know how Selene and the children,
they're living in the same apartment where they last saw their father alive.
And it's been really hard on them to live in that same home.
All the memories. The kids were having nightmares and they would just love a fresh start.
They're not looking for like a new home. They just want to literally move to
a different unit in their current apartment complex.
OK, but when they asked the complex, there wasn't one available.
OK, so she went on to tell me that not very long after that,
one of the apartments in the complex became available.
But when the complex called her niece to tell her that because her niece was
the English speaker in the family, her niece told the apartment complex,
she's like, sorry, we can't take it.
We don't have the money because it was going to cost.
Yep. You guessed it. Five hundred dollars. Exactly.
OK. It was like the fee, the moving fee. And so Donna found out about all of
this from Celine's niece and she immediately called the apartment complex and
she was like, hey, do not give that apartment away.
Like Celine doesn't know this, but a total stranger is coming over to her house
with five hundred dollars on Saturday.
OK, so we went over to Celine's on on Saturday and we gave her the money.
And it was just, gosh, it was the most beautiful experience.
And we all just celebrated what was happening. Like, obviously,
they were still grieving the loss of her husband and their father,
but we were all celebrating.
And I got to hold the baby and I met all the children. It was just like this full circle story.
And I never experienced anything like it in my lifetime.
And I mean, what are the odds that I was prompted to give away the exact dollar
amount for a single mother who needed a gift from God more than any other time in her life.
And there was a family who needed the exact dollar amount at that time in history
for a life changing reason.
Like, I couldn't believe it. OK, and so after this, I was like,
OK, God, I see you see what you're doing and I can get behind this whole miracle thing.
Like, OK, I'm a believer. Right. And it really just solidified everything else
for me, everything that had already transpired in my heart and my spirit.
But that's what fully got me out of that darkness that I was in that I was telling you about. Right.
But what happened next is what really sealed the deal. So I'm driving home from
Celine's house and my phone starts ringing from a number that I didn't recognize.
So, of course, I rejected the call because who answers on no numbers, right?
But then I got a text that said like, hey, I just heard what happened.
You've got to tell me the story.
And that's when I realized it was Pastor Kevin. Like, whoops,
I had just totally rejected a call from my pastor.
So I called him back and I told him all the details of what had just happened.
And I remember I was parked in my parking lot and we just sat there and basked
in all that was happening. and the miracle that had just transpired or like
the coincidence as former versions of myself would have called that, right?
But that's when I had this nudge from the Holy Spirit and I declared to him
over the phone. I was like, I am so inspired and moved by what just happened.
Like, I want to see what happens when I really give my life over to God.
Like, I'm going to give my business over to God and I'm going to give finding
my future husband over to God.
And spoiler alert, I just got married last year.
But I was like, I just want to live with an open heart and live like this in every area of my life.
And that's when he said something that seems so small to an outsider,
or it might've seemed small to an outsider, but it meant everything to me because
up until this point, and we haven't talked about this, right?
I hadn't really told my family about any of this.
Like I mentioned it to them at Thanksgiving, probably something like,
hey, I've been going to a church, I've been getting involved in some volunteer work, stuff like that.
But I never really shared that I'd found God and faith, let alone through the
route of Christianity humanity, and of course, now that I was a Christian and
that I'd given my life over to Jesus.
And so on the phone that day, Kevin said something to me that was so powerful.
He said, Leanne, I'm so proud of you.
And I think God knew that that was exactly what I needed to hear.
Like, that was exactly what I needed to hear. And that's what inspired me to do what I did next.
So I got off the phone with him and I texted my parents and I was just like,
hey, I want to share something with you. Can you talk?
So I got on the phone with my mom and my dad, and I told them about the miracles
that had been happening in my life and how my business was thriving in a whole
new way and how I was so purposeful and in this flow and how my anxiety and
shame and all of those emotions that I'd been experiencing and really managing for a long time now.
By the way, I was managing them with meditation and taking care of them every day.
But now they were just kind of no longer present in my life.
Like it wasn't this thing I had to manage. Right.
And then, of course, I shared the story of the five hundred dollars.
And they just listened and celebrated with me and they were super supportive.
And then before we hung up, I said, listen, I want to share something with you.
And it's not that I need your approval, but if I'm totally honest,
like I do want it because no matter how old I get and no matter how independent
I am and I don't need my mommy and daddy, you'll always be my mommy and my daddy, right?
And so I went to say to them, like, listen, I am Jewish and I'm proud to be
Jewish and nothing about that will ever change.
But I also found God and my faith has changed my life. And I'm also Christian.
And I truly believe that I'm both like I'm Jewish and I'm Christian.
Right. But Judaism, again, was just a culture.
Christianity was my faith and my connection to God. And they were both amazing.
They were just like, hey, whatever makes you happy, we support that.
Right. And maybe our beliefs don't need to align with yours.
But if you're happy, we're happy and we just love you and support you.
And we are so proud of you. And again, I heard them say, like,
I'm so proud of you. Like, again, God, I feel like he knew I needed to hear this.
And so this thing that seems so scary to me, you know, like a Jewish girl telling
her parents that she's a Jew and a Christian, it was no longer a big deal.
And I could kind of just like live out in the open, just like that, right?
So just to kind of round out the story, everything since then,
I feel like has been a miracle.
It's not without struggle, of course. It's not one of those things of like,
yes, now I have God and now life is just easy breezy, you know,
lemon squeezy, as they say.
But miracles keep showing up in the midst of my struggles, even when I'm struggling truly.
And, you know, I turned over my business to God and said, God,
please deliver the perfect women that absolutely need my help,
the help that you designed me to serve to them. and he has done that and then some.
And I turned over my coping mechanisms to God and I asked God to help me shift
my emotional home even more from anxiety and fear and shame to peace.
And I really do truly live in peace where, again, I don't need to meditate for
hours a day and do yoga all the time just to find peace.
I wake up with peace. And yeah, sometimes I get that unexplained anxiety or
an emotional speed bump, but it no longer takes me down the rabbit hole for
days or weeks or months and I get to just give it to him.
And I turned over my debt to God and I got out of debt in record time and I
turned over my career to God.
And I said, hey, use me, use me to help the women that need me and use my story
and my suffering and my shame and my experiences and let me be a vessel for healing.
And I really believe that sharing my story here on Dr. Warren's podcast is a big part of that.
So, yeah, I mean, I could go on and on about all the ways that my life has shifted.
But really, I'm just at peace and I have more love and I have more self-love
and the capacity to receive that love from others and give it to others. Right.
And pretty much everybody that saw me since that day, they were like,
I don't know what's different about you, but there's something different about me.
Like they were telling me there was a light inside of me that was shining even brighter than it was.
And apparently I just started looking different, right? Like a glow, so to speak.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I didn't even mention that a few weeks after I gave my life
over to God, ironically, that's when the pandemic hit.
And at the beginning of it all, when the world was scary and shutting down and
everything felt so out of control,
I just remember saying to God again, like, I'm going to hand it over to you,
God, like grow me and let me help people and heal and let my stressless eating
program and my knowledge and my stories be a bright light in these dark times
and let it be a vessel for healing.
Feeling and even though it seems like it was a decade ago now
because we've all settled into kind of this new normal now it's
been a few years really I know that 2021 was such
a crazy year full of a lot of hardship for so many but it was also such a beautiful
season internally for me and for my spiritual growth and my business growing
and helping me to help more and more women and people that are in suffering
and to help them get out of suffering it's really shown me that even in times
of the most uncertainty.
God and my faith can get me through anything because that is a constant,
even in the craziest chaos or uncertainty.
And I truly believe that as I've allowed my faith to expand me and open me up
to even deeper meanings of love and self-compassion, and that's truly what I'm
inviting anyone who is listening into, right?
Like to say that my relationship with God has transformed my life,
well, that would be the understatement of the century.
Like every part of me is different, right? this mind, body, spirit,
everything, my health and my fitness, my business, my finances,
the way I approached dating.
And yes, I eventually met the man who's now my Jesus-loving husband,
but all of it transformed.
But also like the big thing for me is the hope that I have for my future.
I just believe now, like I just believe that I get to have it all and that I
get to have my happy ending.
And to be honest, before I had
faith and before I had a relationship with God, I wasn't always so sure.
Like I had success on the outside, but I never felt it on the inside.
And I always thought that like happiness and the happy ending side of things
was things that other people were going to have, but that I wasn't going to
have it. and that maybe God had forgot about me or abandoned me and I was just alone.
But now I get to live my life with my happy life on the inside,
on the outside, and I get to live wholeheartedly, right?
Let me just be clear too, like this is not me trying to convert you or talk you into anything.
I'm simply here to share my experiences and share my truth and share some of
the miracles that have happened to me over the past few years and just invite
you into possibility because we get to write the stories of our lives And we
get to give our lives whatever meaning we want to give it.
And we get to step into whatever story we choose.
And I chose to try on a story that to some people that might seem unrealistic or unbelievable.
Or to me, it used to be downright outlandish. But trying on the frameworks and
the principles of Christianity and opening myself up to the idea of miracles
and putting myself and my life into those frameworks,
it was absolutely transformational.
And I wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't at least share it with you here
on Spiritual Brain Surgery.
And if there's any voice inside of you that's making you think that you don't get to have this too,
that you don't get to have miracles or that you don't get to have a life of
abundance and love and connection and feeling connected to something bigger
than yourself, never say never.
But also, if you're living in a world of loneliness and isolation,
which is its own epidemic, you don't have to feel so alone. You don't have to do life alone.
You too can have a relationship with God.
And I promise you, I would have never guessed that this would have been my story.
But obviously, God had other plans for me, and I am thankful for that every single day.
So that is it. That is my story of how this bacon-loving, Hebrew-speaking Jewish
scientist went looking for God, dipped her toes into Christianity,
and got to know this guy called Jesus.
And spoiler alert, it completely transformed my life.
So thank you so much for listening. And if you want to learn more about the
work that I do or listen to my podcast, there's a couple of ways that you can do that.
So first off, if you want to learn how to turn off the part of your brain that's
obsessed with food or obsessed with your weight and rewire your own brain for peace and freedom,
then head on over to StresslessEating.com and sign up to watch the Stressless
Eating sneak preview where I have literally peeled back the curtain and walked
you through the exact strategy I teach my clients to heal themselves from the
all or nothing diet mentality for good,
but without restricting themselves.
Punishing their bodies, and definitely without ever having to use words like
macros, low carb or calorie burn.
So it is all over there for you to access over at stresslesseating.com.
And I have two of my own podcasts with iHeartRadio, iHeartMedia.
So one is called Outweigh, which I co-host with radio personality Amy Brown,
where we help women break themselves out of the food and body prison,
end the dieting madness and take control of their health for good.
But without all that restriction, obsession and shame and without dragging it
out for years to address it, it's called Outweigh and you can find it wherever podcasts are streamed.
And then my solo podcast with iHeart is called What's God Got to Do With It,
where I talk about all of this self-image and body image stuff,
but from the perspective of where brain science intersects faith.
It's called What's God Got to Do With It, and you can access it on iHeart or
wherever you get your podcasts.
So that is it for this episode of Spiritual Brain Surgery.
I'm your guest takeover host, Leanne Ellington, and I'm so grateful to get the chance to do this.
So thank you so much for listening to my story and my journey.
And I hope you got whatever you needed to get from it. Bye for now.
Music.
Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren podcast is brought to you by my brand new book.
Hope is the first dose. It's a treatment plan for recovering from trauma,
tragedy and other massive things.
It's available everywhere books are sold. And I narrated the audio books.
Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up by my friend Tommy Walker,
available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.
They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship the Most High God.
And if you're interested in learning more, check out TommyWalkerMinistries.org.
If you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer,
WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer.
And go to my website and sign up for the newsletter, Self-Brain Surgery,
every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states and 60-plus countries
around the world. I'm Dr.
Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon. Remember, friend, you can't change your
life until you change your mind. And the good news is you can start today.
Music.