Candice Noss: Hello and welcome to the design for greatness, podcast conversations with Candace to help you elevate your mind, body, and spirit and own your divine greatness. Today we have Episode number 24, connecting our hearts to Christ with Robin Johnson.
Candice Noss: My goodness, I am absolutely delighted to introduce you all to my good friend Robin Johnson. I met Robin at a retreat a few years ago, and felt an immediate connection to her. Now this is when I was just getting my feet wet in the energy world. And I had so many questions.
Candice Noss: Robin became someone that I could ask these hard questions to, and the thing that really bonded me to her from the moment that we met was her commitment to stay 100% focused on Christ.
Candice Noss: Well, I went on to become certified in Reiki through her course, and have since continued to connect with Robin through many shared social circle activities and retreats. And I love this woman. I am so excited for you to meet her. She just published her 1st book called The Heart of the Gospel, and I'm so excited for her to share with you all of it. Robin has a powerful message to share.
Candice Noss: She has heard a call, and she's stepped up to own her divine greatness in order to accomplish her mission in this world, and I can't wait for each of us to be inspired by Robin today.
Candice Noss: So I'm going to read her her short bio, and then we will jump right in.
Candice Noss: Robin is known as the Heart Whisperer. She is a compassionate life coach, author, and speaker, whose mission is to support people, to create emotional and spiritual healing. After overcoming a 20 year struggle with depression, Robin found peace through healing her own heart, and a peace that she now dedicates her life to helping others find.
Candice Noss: She runs a premier heart healing program called Brave Hearts, and owns the Heart Coach institute that certifies life, coaches worldwide her 1st book, The Heart of the Gospel helps people transform their relationships with Jesus as they heal and open their heart.
Candice Noss: Robin, welcome to the design for greatness, podcast. I am so honored that you are here.
Robin Johnson: Thank you so much. I feel honored to be here, Candace, I adore you.
Candice Noss: The feeling is mutual.
Candice Noss: Oh, thank you.
Candice Noss: I just like I want to. We have so much that I want to cover, and I know, there is like a short amount of attention span that we have for podcast listening. So I'm just going to jump right in, will you please share us your story? What is your mission, and what brought you to your mission? And
Candice Noss: how do you feel that you were called to do this?
Robin Johnson: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. When I was growing up I had experienced some trauma in my childhood. And that trauma began, I started having depression. When I was 14.
Robin Johnson: I didn't have a label for that. I wasn't clinically diagnosed. I, looking back, I feel bad because I just judged myself a lot. I just felt like I was really incapable. Everybody else seemed to be able to handle life.
Robin Johnson: But I couldn't. And
Robin Johnson: That depression went on for 20 years.
Robin Johnson: and during that time I tried to pray it away. I tried to work it away. I thought if I just perform more, if I just do better. I'll feel good about myself. And so it really started this spiral in my life of a lot of self-defeating actions, you know, trying to prove my worth, trying to feel loved from outside sources, because I didn't have that internal love for myself, and
Robin Johnson: as I got married and then had children. It just became more and more difficult to navigate the darkness that would come into my life. It wasn't all the time, but when it came it would, it would stay. It would settle in and stay, and it was hard to really find my way out of it.
Robin Johnson: And
Robin Johnson: so at 1 point I just hit Rock bottom, and I just thought like I'm done with this. I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to solve it, and I told my sister. I think I'm just going to go to the doctor and get on some pill like I would rather feel nothing than feel what I'm feeling I can't deal with this anymore. And she said, Well, would you just try 1 1 thing first, st
Robin Johnson: and she sent me to a man, and to this day. Honestly, I don't really know what he did other than he brought great relief to me. He was.
Robin Johnson: He was a social worker, but he also used a lot of natural natural healing methods. And
Robin Johnson: I started feeling better for the 1st time, and
Robin Johnson: it was just that glimmer of hope and like. Oh, my gosh! Maybe I don't have to be stuck in this the rest of my life.
Robin Johnson: and it was like
Robin Johnson: over the next 10 years God gave me this little trail of breadcrumbs, you know, like, now try this. Now try this. Now try this. And
Robin Johnson: and so I did try Reiki, and got trained in that I did do some other things. And then, at 1 point, as I was helping other people now heal, I found heart centered therapy.
Robin Johnson: and
Robin Johnson: as I went to my training and heart centered therapy, the woman that taught it. She was amazing, just like the most open hearted
Robin Johnson: person I'd ever met, and I was just in awe. I'd never seen someone with a heart wide open like that, and not that I could see it, but you could feel it, you know.
Robin Johnson: And
Robin Johnson: As she was talking, I thought, man, this lady is kind of
Robin Johnson: like living on the edge. Why would you keep your heart that open like that's dangerous. You're so vulnerable like she's going to get hurt. And I just saw her as like this naive person that didn't know you should protect your heart, because that's how I had lived my whole life. My heart was guarded, my heart was protected. I was kind of always on alert.
Robin Johnson: which, of course, comes from trauma.
Robin Johnson: But the the second day of our training she told her life story, and it was horrendous, like the worst.
Robin Johnson: the worst of the worst. Every worst possible scenario that could happen in a young child's life happened to her.
Robin Johnson: and I just thought, Oh, my gosh! If she can heal from all of that.
Robin Johnson: and I've experienced 1 10th of that.
Robin Johnson: If she could heal from all of that and live with her heart wide open, then so can I.
Robin Johnson: And it just really began this process of healing and opening my heart.
Robin Johnson: And after that, when I could look back in my life and see how much of my life I had lived with my heart shut down because you can live just from your mind. You can function just from the mind and never really feel life.
Robin Johnson: I just thought I don't. I don't ever want to go back to life without my heart.
Robin Johnson: and if there's anyone out there who is living disconnected from their heart.
Robin Johnson: That's who I want to help. I've got to help people find their heart.
Robin Johnson: So that's what I do.
Candice Noss: So much. I myself struggle with depression. In fact, that's what brought me into what I feel my calling is, and I struggle with depression on and off. But I can think of 3 really powerful lows, dark night of the soul type of lows that
Candice Noss: something had to change, and
Candice Noss: I would love for you to share what happens to our heart when we are living depressed.
Robin Johnson: Well, I think you know depression is complicated, and so
Robin Johnson: I don't want to categorically say, if you're depressed, you're not living from your heart. I don't think that's fair, so I think you can
Robin Johnson: struggle with depression and still have the ability to tap into your heart.
Robin Johnson: But for me, specifically, that depression came from the pain of that childhood trauma.
Robin Johnson: and I didn't have a therapist. I didn't have any tools. I didn't have any way to heal that trauma.
Robin Johnson: and so my only option was, if my heart was open, I felt that pain, but if my heart was shut, I did not.
Robin Johnson: You know if I disconnected from my heart I didn't.
Robin Johnson: And so I think a lot of times
Robin Johnson: in depression. We are sad, we are heartbroken. We're dealing with grief. Whether it's situational depression or a chemical depression or a trauma depression like, I'm not an expert. I'm not a therapist to categorize all those different types of depression.
Robin Johnson: but oftentimes our sadness, our pain, our emotion, is so heavy it's just easier to disconnect and not feel it.
Robin Johnson: and the result of that is we feel numb.
Robin Johnson: You know we feel empty. We feel not even connected to ourself.
Candice Noss: Right. We we disconnect from our passion. Everything seems gray. There's no color in life.
Robin Johnson: Yeah.
Candice Noss: And that's a huge sign that we've been disconnected from our heart because it's just too painful.
Candice Noss: Yes, I love how you have described that. And there's such a connection between mind, body, and spirit and heart. To me is spirit, heart, heart to me is heavenly mother. Heart to me is our access to our most divine self.
Candice Noss: that is, our heart, our spirit, and
Candice Noss: and to be disconnected from that
Candice Noss: we're we're out of sync.
Candice Noss: I talk about mind, body, spirit, alignment. When we're not connected to our heart, we're completely out of alignment. And I do believe a lot of depression. A lot of the struggles that people have are striving for these extrinsic measures of value, these outside
Candice Noss: proof that I'm okay. This outside validation, that you are a good person and you are worthy, and you should be loved. And it's almost like we have to. Unless we get that from God. We're always striving to get that from other people, and we will come up short again and again, and again, and even if we're
Candice Noss: for me, I was a I was a performer, I mean I was the valedictorian. I was the high school athlete. I got scholarships, and I was rodeo Queen, and like I had to perform, and if I wasn't performing. I was a.
Robin Johnson: Yes.
Candice Noss: Crap and.
Robin Johnson: Yes.
Candice Noss: There's a point when you can no longer get another award or another
Candice Noss: another measure to tell you that you're an okay person. Will you speak to that a little bit, and how how you were able to shift
Candice Noss: and get your worth from from God.
Robin Johnson: Yes, and what you're describing to me is sometimes we just have that hole in ourself that we we don't love ourself. We don't accept ourself.
Robin Johnson: and because we don't have that self-love, we're trying to fill that hole with all of these outside pieces right? That somehow will soothe that pain inside of us.
Robin Johnson: But as we learn to heal our hearts
Robin Johnson: you're so. I love what you're saying because the heart is our connection to God. It is our connection to the Divine
Robin Johnson: and the Scriptures teach us. Even the Holy Ghost can speak to our mind and our heart, but it dwells in our heart.
Candice Noss: How's in her heart?
Robin Johnson: Yeah. And so a lot of times when people shut down the heart, they lose access to God, and they feel like God has forsaken them. God has abandoned me. God doesn't love me. God's mad at me. I'm not good enough for God. I can't feel him, you know, and it's not that he's gone anywhere.
Robin Johnson: He's right there.
Robin Johnson: But what's happened is we've lost the ability to connect.
Robin Johnson: And so, as we've as we can heal the heart.
Robin Johnson: open that divine connection, open that connection back to our authentic self.
Robin Johnson: then we can feel God's love more fully in our life. We feel His presence in our life, and
Robin Johnson: it's beautiful to witness. I have an amazing example of that. One week I had 2 different clients come in. It was their 1st session, both of them. One was a man, one was a woman. They were not related in any way, but both of them came in and said, just so, you know I don't want to talk about God. I don't. I don't have a relationship with him. I don't, you know, believe in him. And I said, that's fine. You know. What would you like to talk about today?
Robin Johnson: 3 months later, after working with both of them to heal their heart, to find
Robin Johnson: that ability to open and connect. In the exact same week. Both of them came to their appointment that week and said, You know.
Robin Johnson: I feel like maybe I'd like to talk about God today.
Robin Johnson: and I was blown away. For 3 months we had not talked about God at all ever.
Robin Johnson: but the fact that they healed their heart felt comfortable. Opening their heart.
Robin Johnson: They felt that divinity, that divine connection within them, and they missed him.
Robin Johnson: They wanted to feel more of him.
Robin Johnson: and so I know, as we let God into our heart and into our life, he can help us see our true worth, which is completely independent of anything you accomplish or succeed.
Robin Johnson: and none of us can ever be more or less than a child of God.
Candice Noss: Yeah, I actually was gonna read that part right here. You can never be more or less than a child. I have it hearted in my thing right here.
Robin Johnson: Hello!
Candice Noss: So true. It's so true and understanding that your worth is set, and it's infinite, and there's nothing you can do to get more of it. There's nothing you can do to lose any of it.
Robin Johnson: So.
Candice Noss: We are nothing more or less than a child of God, and it's liberating.
Candice Noss: it's liberating, because then we can just grow. We have nothing to prove.
Robin Johnson: Right.
Candice Noss: Get to the business of becoming our very best self, with nothing to prove to anyone, but just
Candice Noss: because we choose to become more like our Savior.
Robin Johnson: Yeah.
Candice Noss: Yeah.
Candice Noss: I love it. I love what you were saying about healing the heart allowed God in. And there is such a state you talk about the states of the heart in your book. There's such a state of the heart of a hardened heart
Candice Noss: and that hardened heart. It can be hardened toward God, it can be hardened toward other people in relationships.
Candice Noss: Will you speak to what actually happens to soften the heart? And you talk about healing it. What exactly are you healing when you heal the heart.
Robin Johnson: Well for some people we're healing the pain, you know, for some people a hardened heart is a very unique state. You get there because you're angry. You're mad. You're full of revenge, or malice, or envy, or greed like
Robin Johnson: The heart hardens
Robin Johnson: because it is with it's void of love, of compassion of all those things that make the heart alive within you, you know. And so, when we have a hardened heart to counterbalance that there needs to be a softening of the heart.
Robin Johnson: and that softening usually requires humility.
Robin Johnson: It requires forgiveness. It requires grace, it requires compassion.
Robin Johnson: Whoever you're angry at, whether it's a situation, or a person or a circumstance. You have to come into alignment with that and accept what has happened. Because when we keep fighting, what we resist persists right? So when we.
Candice Noss: Well.
Robin Johnson: Fighting that person, and we're not going to be satisfied until they're punished and they suffer. And they this, you know, when we keep pushing for the justice, for the revenge, for the validation to be proved. Right.
Robin Johnson: It we can't. You'll never find a soft heart in that state.
Robin Johnson: right? So a lot of times. There's a beautiful book called Radical Acceptance. We have to. With some things in our life we will never find the justice. We will never find
Robin Johnson: justice met out in this Earth life, and so we have to be willing to say. I don't like it. I don't understand it. I don't know why God allowed this in my life. But
Robin Johnson: I accepted.
Robin Johnson: This thing did happen.
Robin Johnson: and I'm not going to fight it anymore. I'm going to accept it. That it was for my learning and growth.
Robin Johnson: and then from that point we can soften into humility and say, God teach me!
Robin Johnson: That was a really hard, horrible thing I just had to go through. But I'm going to trust you that it had purpose.
Robin Johnson: Please teach me.
Candice Noss: Oh, there's so much power in that in that surrender, that surrender of Karma right, that surrender of justice, and that, leaning into grace
Candice Noss: and leaning into mercy, I think of of the Lord's Prayer. Forgive me my debts as I forgive my debtors.
Robin Johnson: Yes.
Candice Noss: I mean, we are all messy humans, and I'm sure I've messed up so many ways, and I have no idea. And and there are also things that are
Candice Noss: solidly gross traumatic things that people have overstepped. But
Candice Noss: in the whole swing of things it's like, I can't remember if it was Brene Brown. But you know, when you argue with reality you lose every time.
Candice Noss: I mean, it shouldn't be this way like you're right, but it is so now what? And that radical acceptance is key to softening the heart. And
Candice Noss: I love in the Scriptures, where it says, the pure in heart are the ones that will see God.
Candice Noss: And that's that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to spiritually ascend to that point where we actually come into the presence of God.
Candice Noss: The only way we can do that is to have a pure heart. And I was just in the Temple a while ago, and it talked about a true and honest heart. And I thought.
Candice Noss: Okay, a true and honest heart is a step toward a pure heart, and I just wondered if you would speak to that a little bit.
Robin Johnson: Yeah, you know. I, as I started learning about the heart, I just
Robin Johnson: started appreciating the heart for what it was like, this sacred vehicle to get to God, you know, and and this place where we could feel His presence, and His power and divine love and compassion all these things. And so I just thought this heart. The heart was so pure. And then one day I was reading the Scriptures, and it was talking about this man.
Robin Johnson: and he did not like his 2 brothers.
Robin Johnson: and and the 2 brothers were suffering with something, and it said in the Scriptures, this man rejoiced in his heart that his brothers were suffering. I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. The heart is pure like how who? You can't rejoice in your heart
Robin Johnson: that someone is suffering. That's not right.
Robin Johnson: And so I prayed about it. I'm like, God, teach me, what? What did this even mean?
Robin Johnson: And he taught me how
Robin Johnson: we come here to earth with this pure body that's beautiful and perfectly formed. And yet we can defile the body right? You. You would know this better than anyone else. We can put junk in it, we can not give it rest. We can not give it movement and exercise like this pure body we were given can become defiled.
Robin Johnson: and so can the mind. The mind can become defiled, and so can the heart.
Robin Johnson: The heart can also be defiled by what you put in it.
Robin Johnson: And so that's why, when you hold on to anger and greed and animosity, and all of those vengeful feelings, the heart can become hardened, you know, but also
Robin Johnson: when we bring into the heart love and peace and compassion, when we make room in our life for light and hope and truth.
Robin Johnson: The purity of that heart just expands, and we just can up level
Robin Johnson: the quality of our heart. In the same way we can up level the quality of our mind, or the health and wellness of our body.
Candice Noss: I love it, I love it. It makes me think of the 2 great commandments, right, love God, love ourself, love our neighbor, and we. We really can't love our neighbor until we love ourself, and it's all about the heart, and the more you love, the more capacity you have to love, and it doesn't make any sense. It's totally
Candice Noss: crazy that you'd give. The more you give more you have.
Robin Johnson: Yes.
Candice Noss: And and it's it's so beautiful.
Candice Noss: However, when you were speaking about your story in the very beginning, you were like.
Candice Noss: how can she live with a heart wide open. That's dangerous, and so vulnerable.
Candice Noss: Will you speak to that? Because I have lived with a heart wide open and been like smacked.
Candice Noss: and then I protect my heart, and then I try and open again. And will you speak to? How can we live with the heart wide open and fully connected
Candice Noss: and not and not be vulnerable and not not have it be dangerous, because that's how we that's truly how we want to live right.
Robin Johnson: Yes, yes.
Robin Johnson: yes, and this is so important. I feel like this is one of the reasons people don't want to live from their heart because they feel like they will be vulnerable.
Robin Johnson: And yet the heart offers us so much if we think about the gifts of the heart. 1st of all. As we connect to the heart, we are connecting into the divine, which means divine wisdom, divine truth.
Robin Johnson: The heart is this incredible record, keeper of our lives. And so it became one of my most powerful tools in that journey. Out of depression
Robin Johnson: I could go to the heart and ask answers like, When did I give up my confidence? When did I quit loving myself when and the heart can teach you all those things?
Robin Johnson: So the heart holds our access to this higher wisdom and higher truth.
Robin Johnson: The heart. Science will tell you. The heart is the electromagnetic field of the heart is the strongest part of who we are.
Candice Noss: Okay, and 600 times stronger than our mind. The electric field of our mind.
Robin Johnson: Yeah, like, the electric field is a hundred times stronger than our mind, and the magnetic field is 5,000 times stronger.
Candice Noss: Wow!
Robin Johnson: And that of our mind. Yes.
Robin Johnson: so there's power in the heart. There is the
Robin Johnson: truth in our heart, there is our divine connection from our heart, and the heart is our source of love and compassion. And so, when you think of all 4 of those gifts, your truth, your divine compassion, your strength, you know your power
Robin Johnson: and love.
Robin Johnson: I feel more vulnerable without those gifts.
Robin Johnson: When we truly understand what the heart is doing for us, there is more vulnerability to live without those gifts.
Robin Johnson: Now, the most open-hearted people I know
Robin Johnson: are the people with the strongest boundaries.
Robin Johnson: Because, yes, if we just walk around with an open heart, and we let everybody do anything we want, and we just take on everybody's junk, you know, like we will be overburdened fast, and we will shut that heart back down. So you have to have boundaries, emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally.
Robin Johnson: and even asking that simple question like, what would allow my heart to stay open
Robin Johnson: right? The answer to that. Well, I better not watch for me. I'm I'm really sensitive, so this may seem silly to some of the listeners. But I'm very sensitive to scary movies like they really disturb me.
Candice Noss: Me, too. I can't do it.
Robin Johnson: No.
Robin Johnson: so that's a simple thing. But that's a boundary I've set for myself. I'm not going to watch scary movies because it takes me out of my heart. It puts me in a place of fear.
Robin Johnson: There are certain people that like to have certain contentious conversations in my family.
Robin Johnson: and I've had to let them know. I don't want to speak about this
Robin Johnson: like this topic is something that's really going to pull me out of my heart, so can we talk about something else
Robin Johnson: like you can set boundaries on your time. Some people will take and take and take and take and take of your time, and then you're depleted. You're exhausted.
Robin Johnson: And now we get angry in our heart like, wow! They took advantage of me, you know, like, and we become upset so.
Candice Noss: Resentful. Yeah, which hardens the heart.
Robin Johnson: Yes, to be able to say to someone, this is how much time I have to offer you, or this is the resource I have for you today. And and that's what I can give you.
Robin Johnson: Right? So there are simple ways. We can set boundaries in all area of our life that allow us to stay in the space of an open heart.
Candice Noss: I love that I love that question. What would allow my heart to stay open? And what boundary do I need to set
Candice Noss: in order for my heart to stay open.
Candice Noss: And when you were talking about the the movies, and I just had that Scripture come to my mind, perfect love casteth out all fear and perfect love is your heart. And so, if there's if there's fear, you know, like you're saying trauma, that
Candice Noss: we don't want to feel it. So we disconnect. And I think that's really, really critical to recognize. And you know faith and fear can't coexist, and
Candice Noss: figuring out how to eliminate fear to live with an open heart, and and making those boundaries there in order to facilitate that.
Robin Johnson: Absolutely, absolutely.
Robin Johnson: And we talked about depression and the effect on the heart. But I just also want to say trauma has
Robin Johnson: an effect on the heart. Because when we go into a trauma response, we switch into that fight or flight mode, and that is the space where the mind, the body. It's just trying to keep us. Survival is the state we're in. And so the mind is fully in charge and in trauma. We disconnect from the heart.
Candice Noss: Yeah, and I, it sounds like, filler brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robin Johnson: So yeah, healing that trauma is really helpful in helping you on that journey to open your heart.
Candice Noss: Yeah, it's it's it's critical. The more I learn about processing emotions and allowing the emotion to be there and allowing it to go through.
Candice Noss: We were never taught how to process emotion, and because of that we were never taught how to heal our trauma.
Robin Johnson: Yeah.
Candice Noss: And processing is so important when when something comes to the surface to be healed.
Candice Noss: If if we bypass that if we push it down. If we buffer away from it, then then we live in this disconnected state still. But
Candice Noss: I truly believe when we're triggered, when something comes to the surface when we feel something deeply, that is an invitation to then go deeper and and process, and the heart is
Candice Noss: just the huge vehicle to do that because it is. It's it's how we feel.
Robin Johnson: Yes, and my friend used to say, Michelle Engel, she taught me that the body is the communicator.
Robin Johnson: and so, when we have an element in the physical body. It is communicating that something is wrong on another level, you know, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and I thought that was so powerful just in giving us that chance to recognize
Robin Johnson: the body's helping us out.
Candice Noss: Our body is so incredible. That's why IA body purposely loved, a body cherished.
Candice Noss: It's our gift. It's what allows us to access. What's happening in our mind and our spirit. And it's so critical to give
Candice Noss: that information. And
Candice Noss: and emotions are just messengers. They're not good or bad, and you know, and trauma. We all we all experience it to to differing degrees, but
Candice Noss: it is something that every person on this planet, going through mortality will deal with a significant
Candice Noss: trauma, and to be able to address it and deal with it, and then live with that open heart where we're just full of connection, full of love, yet not to be a doormat.
Robin Johnson: Yes, yes.
Candice Noss: Yeah. So I want to speak to how people can connect their hearts more to Christ. And I know you have so many really amazing tools about how to do that. Would you speak to that for a second.
Robin Johnson: Yes, I think
Robin Johnson: I think it's so much simpler than we make it out to be. You know, a lot of times I think we feel like
Robin Johnson: in in religion, that oh, I've got to do this, and this, and this, and this, and this and this, and this, and then maybe Christ will think about
Robin Johnson: loving me, you know.
Candice Noss: Hi.
Robin Johnson: We. We put so many conditions on his love for us, and he doesn't put any.
Candice Noss: Hmm.
Robin Johnson: It's not true.
Candice Noss: Grace. Yeah.
Robin Johnson: Yes.
Candice Noss: Really to do that, because he has that.
Robin Johnson: Yes, yes, and I. Some of the things I like to think about
Robin Johnson: Christ. Christ did the atonement for all of us
Robin Johnson: before we even committed any of the sins we were going to commit.
Robin Johnson: And so that means there. There is no loophole. There is no clause. It's not like. Well, he would, he would take away. He would suffer for me for that sin, but not this one like this. This one is too big. This one is too bad. This one is too much. He's never going to forgive me. Wrong.
Candice Noss: Right.
Robin Johnson: We are here.
Candice Noss: Yeah.
Robin Johnson: Dead!
Candice Noss: There's no exceptions.
Robin Johnson: Right, there are 0 exceptions. So this thought that I might be too bad to have Christ in my life. No, I don't believe it for one second.
Robin Johnson: So the fact that Christ already died for you
Robin Johnson: already suffered through all that you're going to suffer.
Robin Johnson: What that means is, he is the one, the only one that is ready to stand there to offer you complete love, complete empathy, complete compassion. He is the only one that knows exactly how you feel.
Robin Johnson: and and a lot of times in the trials of our life we turn away from God. We turn away from Christ because we get hurt. We feel like, oh, they don't. They must not love me, or they wouldn't have let that happen.
Robin Johnson: It's not. It's never about their love.
Robin Johnson: It's always about our learning, our growth, our choice, our ability to make choices.
Robin Johnson: and none of that is dependent or conditional on their love.
Robin Johnson: So 1st of all, I would say, know that he is always there.
Robin Johnson: There's never a time he's going to step aside and not love you for a little while, just to prove a point, or just to get your attention. It is. It's us that moves
Robin Johnson: right. It's us that moves. He is always there.
Robin Johnson: And one of my, the sweetest experiences I had recently with a friend. She's I don't know what faith she is, but a Christian, and but such a devout Christian, just someone that lives the gospel of Jesus Christ so fully, it's so evident the light of Christ is so evident in her countenance. And I said to her one day, I said, Tally, tell me how your spiritual journey began.
Robin Johnson: and she said, You know, when I was 3 years old
Robin Johnson: I just invited Christ into my heart.
Robin Johnson: and I never wanted him to leave.
Candice Noss: Oh!
Robin Johnson: I'm like what that is the cutest thing.
Robin Johnson: And I've pondered that so many times like it can be just that simple.
Robin Johnson: Just invite him in, make space for him. Get rid of the stuff that's in your heart that you know isn't going to invite him in or make him comfortable to be around.
Robin Johnson: Forgive the people you need to forgive. Let go of the past pain and trauma. I can make way in your heart for Christ, and he will walk right in.
Candice Noss: I love it so true. That's so true.
Candice Noss: There's 1 thing that that I was doing before I even knew that you were doing it, but it's something that you I've heard you speak. I've read your book, I've gone through your stuff and and you teach it a lot, and it's letters to God.
Robin Johnson: I mean.
Candice Noss: And it's something that I started a long time ago. But then, when you, when you
Candice Noss: taught it, I'm like I do that, and I love it. It's such a powerful way that I have found to connect my heart. Will you explain your experience with letters to God, and and how
Candice Noss: how people could start to do that if they desire to have more.
Robin Johnson: Yes, I love my letters to God, and if a friend taught me about it, we were starting a business together, and I was scared. We had so many decisions to make. It was a bigger business than anything I'd ever done, and and she was a very successful business person, and so I asked her one day, like, How do you dare take all of these risks, you know, investing the money, the time. And she's like, Oh, it's simple. I just write letters to God. I'm like what
Robin Johnson: that even happen like, where did you get his address like?
Robin Johnson: Oh, no, no! I just write letters in a journal, and I'm like I don't get it. How does that even help you? And she said, Well, then, you wait and listen, and he gives you a letter back.
Robin Johnson: and I was blown away. I'm like, Wait! You're telling me you write a letter to God, and then you listen, and then you hear his message back. She's like, Yeah, that's all you do.
Robin Johnson: And I thought about my life, and I've been a spiritual girl from the beginning. I've always loved Jesus. I've always loved God like. There's never not a time for them in my life. But I could have counted on one hand, probably the amount of times I prayed and heard an answer back that I could remember
Robin Johnson: like it just wasn't in my wheelhouse to just talk to God, and then he just talks back.
Robin Johnson: and I said, Well, when I pray, I don't really hear things back like that. And she said, Just try a letter. You'll be surprised.
Robin Johnson: And so I started writing letters to God, and I was blown away
Robin Johnson: at what I would hear the impressions. I would feel, the wisdom that would come that was far beyond my own natural ability and wisdom.
Robin Johnson: The amount of peace that I felt in his messages. It was
Robin Johnson: truly remarkable to me that it worked.
Robin Johnson: but it has also become such a sacred devotion to me. These letters to God, I on my shelf right here I can see 5 journals that I have that are outright there, that are all my letters to him, and his answers back, and
Robin Johnson: and even I like I can read the Scriptures, and I love hearing how God relates to other people, and how He solves their problems and helps them. But in my letters to God
Robin Johnson: I get to see how God works with me personally
Robin Johnson: the answers He has just for me. It's my own personal revelation.
Robin Johnson: It's my own time, with the Spirit, with His wisdom with His love, with his grace.
Robin Johnson: and I love it because it's written down so I can go back and reread and reread his counsel, his advice, his love, his encouragement.
Robin Johnson: It's been life changing and just created such a personal connection with God. Where, before he was, this Divine Father somewhere up in the heavens.
Robin Johnson: Now he's this personal father. I can access in my heart.
Candice Noss: Hmm!
Candice Noss: I love it so so important. And as I've gone through this experience myself, I thought, oh, I'm just being presumptuous like. Is this. Just me answering my own question, and my recommendation is, do it, anyway? Write what comes to your mind and your heart anyway, and then come back
Candice Noss: a day later that afternoon and read it. And it is surprising it is very surprising when you're when you come back to to recognize wait! Actually, I
Candice Noss: that really wasn't me. And there is profound.
Candice Noss: profound truth here. And so it's wonderful. I just was hoping that we could share that with my listeners. I hope everyone.
Robin Johnson: Thank you.
Candice Noss: Challenge everyone who's listening to
Candice Noss: that practice to to take some time and and a lot of times I feel that we think we have to just only have good feelings in our heart
Candice Noss: that.
Robin Johnson: Damn!
Candice Noss: We have to just, you know. Only only be happy, only be good. Find the good in everything. Just stay grateful and absolutely. That's so important. But when we are hurt, when bad things happen, a life is 50 50. There's opposition in all things. So half of the time our life is going to suck
Candice Noss: we half the time we're going to be in this.
Robin Johnson: Yeah.
Candice Noss: Horrible like this is horrible and awful. And are you kidding me? And so there's so much power in lamenting
Candice Noss: yes, in being able to bear that heart out
Candice Noss: in prayer, in supplication to our Heavenly Father. Will you talk about how that heals the heart, and and that spiritual bypassing that people try to do.
Robin Johnson: Yeah, you know what's coming to mind. As you say, that is a covenant I made at baptism when I was baptized, was to mourn with those that mourn.
Robin Johnson: It does not say, Go, cheer up the people that are sad.
Robin Johnson: it doesn't say, bring a casserole to the people that are sad. It doesn't say, try to avoid the people that are sad. It's uncomfortable.
Robin Johnson: it says, mourn with those that mourn.
Robin Johnson: and our emotions are our greatest teachers in life. They're horrible baggage. So we don't want to hold on to negative emotion because it will deplete us in many physically, mentally, emotionally.
Robin Johnson: But to feel emotion
Robin Johnson: when we feel grief, the depth of that grief is an indicator of the depth of our love for that person.
Robin Johnson: the depth of our sorrow and disappointment indicates the depth of our hope or our belief in something.
Robin Johnson: And so our emotions are powerful teachers. We are meant to feel them. We are meant to support others in feeling them. And because if I wake up sad, it doesn't mean I'm not in the state of a pure heart. It just means from my heart. I'm feeling sadness today.
Robin Johnson: and that's an emotion that I can feel that I can learn from, and that can move through me. I don't have to hold on to it, and I don't have to condemn myself for having it.
Robin Johnson: and even anger, you know. Sometimes we think of anger as a bad emotion.
Robin Johnson: but anger changes things when we get angry at
Robin Johnson: for righteous ways in righteous circumstance.
Robin Johnson: That can compel change and move us forward. Now again, we don't want to hold on to anger forever, but that anger can serve as something that changes the trajectory of things, and
Robin Johnson: I often think even about Christ being angry in the Temple. It's so interesting. How so many people affronted Christ, and he did not get angry. He managed things in amazing ways, and yet it was when people defiled the temple which was the house of his father.
Robin Johnson: and I feel like that. Anger was him getting mad for his father. I think that's beautiful and significant to think about.
Robin Johnson: So.
Robin Johnson: Yes, our emotions are good. They're we're meant to have them. It helps us know we're alive.
Robin Johnson: But we let them flow through us. You can think of emotion as energy in motion.
Robin Johnson: And it needs to flow.
Candice Noss: Needs to flow, and when we stuff it, when we, when we bury it, when we pretend it's not there, that
Candice Noss: that will only create problems in our body later. So
Candice Noss: allowing it to be there, allowing us to feel it, I love to just feel it, feel it hard, feel it big.
Robin Johnson: Yes.
Candice Noss: To Christ and ask Him to take it, and then ask Him to give me a different feeling. And I do a lot of a lot of thought work because your thought creates your emotion, and your emotion is what lives in your heart, and a lot of times we can. We can use our thoughts to bring us back into the emotion that we desire to feel. And so it's the thought that creates the feeling of hate or the feeling of anger or the feeling of whatever it is. And if we can just brain dump that out if we can get it, we can
Candice Noss: have the give it the credence that it deserves. It needs to be out there and then, and then repent. Give it all to Christ.
Candice Noss: and feel something different. We can move through all of those things.
Robin Johnson: Absolutely.
Candice Noss: Well, Robin, it has been just so amazing to speak with you about the heart and about your book, the heart of the gospel.
Candice Noss: We were talking before you said that you have a few things that you would want to offer.
Robin Johnson: Yes, I would love to send any of you that feel like you're struggling with the heart to connect to your heart. I have a guided meditation that would just help you get there, and it will be my voice talking, guiding you through things you can do. And so I have this free heart meditation. I would love to give the listeners, and then, if anyone feels like they need more help, you want to start healing your heart. But maybe you don't know
Robin Johnson: where to begin or what steps to take. I have a free 15 min consultation, and you can just tell me about your circumstance, and hopefully, I'll be able to give you some pointers of where to start or where to begin, because I know a lot of times like for those 20 years of depression I desperately wanted to heal. I desperately wanted out, but I didn't even know the 1st step to take.
Robin Johnson: and I would have done the work if I had known. But I didn't know where to go. So hopefully. I can just help you find that right next step for you
Robin Johnson: and help people find some healing.
Candice Noss: I love it. I will put those links in the show notes. So anyone that wants to take advantage of that meditation and of that of that 15 min call with you.
Candice Noss: That would be. I highly recommend Robyn.
Robin Johnson: So much.
Candice Noss: Well before we end. I just, is there anything else on your heart that you just feel that you might want to share as we wrap up anything that
Candice Noss: that just you would like to to end with.
Candice Noss: As we wrap up.
Robin Johnson: Yes,
Robin Johnson: This is something I I do with my clients and students. I invite them to connect to their heart, and then just listen for a message.
Robin Johnson: and knowing that message I feel comes through spirit. But the spirit.
Robin Johnson: So yeah, I would like to connect my heart if that's okay. And just.
Candice Noss: Good.
Robin Johnson: Give you a message from my heart.
Robin Johnson: The answers that you are seeking are not outside of you, they are within.
Robin Johnson: and the moment that you fully give presence to your divine self.
Robin Johnson: that you are a holy being. You are a divine child of God, you are fully capable and worthy of love and affection.
Robin Johnson: When you trust that you will draw
Robin Johnson: people and circumstances into your life that will serve you for your highest good.
Robin Johnson: You are the magnet you. Your heart is what is attracting people in or out of your life.
Robin Johnson: and so, as you purify and elevate your heart, things will change.
Robin Johnson: You are also the gatekeeper of your heart.
Robin Johnson: There's nobody else that controls your heart.
Robin Johnson: And so you get to decide what boundaries you put up, what circumstances happen in your life.
Robin Johnson: and the purity of that heart is in your control.
Robin Johnson: You are never outside of God's reach.
Robin Johnson: Nothing you have done, nothing you will ever do
Robin Johnson: will put you outside of the arms of His love. His love for you is infinite.
Robin Johnson: which means it's so big you cannot even measure it.
Robin Johnson: and it is eternal, which means it has no beginning and no end.
Robin Johnson: And the last thing I just want to say is that you are enough.
Robin Johnson: The messy, broken, imperfect you
Robin Johnson: is enough. That is what this life is about. We're here to learn. We're here to grow and we learn and grow through our mistakes. We learn and grow through our trials.
Robin Johnson: and there is nothing you should be other than exactly who you are right now.
Robin Johnson: and where you are on your journey is the perfect place. You're learning exactly what you want to learn.
Robin Johnson: You're growing in ways you want to grow.
Robin Johnson: and whether you choose to learn the easy way or the hard way God loves you. All the same.
Robin Johnson: he gave you your agency for that very reason that you get to choose your path of learning.
Robin Johnson: and he loves you, and will support you through that growth.
Candice Noss: I love it so much. Thank you, Robin. What a gift! What a gift you are! Oh.
Robin Johnson: You're welcome. Thank you so much. Oh, Candace, I feel like this could be a 10 h podcast. I would just want to keep talking.
Candice Noss: I know. Amen, sister, let's do it.
Robin Johnson: Thank you so much. I appreciate this chance.
Candice Noss: Thank you for joining us.
Candice Noss: Thank you for joining me today. Isn't it awesome to see Robin, a woman with a mission to help heal hearts, and to connect hearts to Christ.
Candice Noss: truly owning her divine greatness in order to fulfill this sacred purpose.
Candice Noss: I love it. I know that I am inspired to examine my heart, and I hope this episode will be the subtle nudge for everyone to purify our hearts by forgiving, by processing whatever emotions are coming up, letting them run their course through our body, totally surrendering to what really is by dropping resistance.
Candice Noss: I hope we may all truly access our highest self and divine wisdom through fully connecting to our hearts and living with our hearts open.
Candice Noss: I would love to help you become the boss of your brain, so that you can more fully manage your mind and intentionally access your heart.
Candice Noss: Our thoughts are what determine how we feel.
Candice Noss: our thoughts determine how we feel.
Candice Noss: and our feelings, then determine the state of our heart. So, learning how to override the default, wiring of our lower brain and aligning our thoughts to our highest good.
Candice Noss: It's the key to living from a place of love to living connected to our heart and to our divinity.
Candice Noss: Grab my Mini course 5 days of focus, and get started on this path to becoming the boss of your brain, to truly
Candice Noss: find the link in the show notes, and remember, in whatever place or circumstance, you find yourself.
Candice Noss: own your divine greatness, and use that greatness to do the good in this world like only you can.
Candice Noss: You are designed for greatness.