107. Stuck in Anxiety? How Your Brain Can Learn to Trust God Again—with Eric Gilbert

What if anxiety isn’t a flaw—but a signal calling you back to God? In this powerful episode of Curious for Christ, I sit down with Christian leadership and mental health coach Eric Gilbert to explore how faith, neuroscience, and past wounds intersect—and how healing in Christ is not only possible, but promised.

We talk about:

• How fear and trauma keep us spiritually stuck
• The lies we believe about ourselves and God
• Why busyness and burnout are symptoms, not solutions
• And the steps to experiencing peace and purpose again

If you’ve ever felt frozen by fear, overwhelmed by anxiety, or ashamed of your struggles—this conversation is for you. Jesus came to set the captives free, and He wants wholeness for every part of you—mind, body, and soul.

 Key Takeaways & Scriptures:

1. The 3 B’s that keep you spiritually stuck:

• Busyness – Avoiding pain by staying distracted

• Burying – Numbing or shutting down emotionally

• Broken relationships – Living disconnected from God or others

“Be still, and know that I am God.” — Psalm 46:10

2. Fear is not a flaw—it’s a signal.

Anxiety may be your body asking for safety. Bring it to Jesus.

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.” — Psalm 56:3

3. You don’t have to imitate anyone else.

Your calling is unique and handcrafted by God.

“We are God’s masterpiece… created to do good works.” — Ephesians 2:10

4. Healing is spiritual and embodied.

God uses breath work, counseling, prayer, and His Word.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart…soul…mind…strength.” — Mark 12:30

5. God meets you right where you are.

Perfection isn’t the goal—presence is.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.” — Psalm 34:18

Want to go deeper with Eric?

• RisingCalm.com: A Christ-centered mental health practice helping individuals heal from trauma, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion through biblical and neuroscience-informed care.
• CourageousCallings.com: A coaching and leadership resource to help believers step boldly into their God-given purpose.
• Take the free Courage Quiz and find out what’s holding you back from living fully aligned with your calling.

 Closing Scripture:

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.” — Psalm 34:8

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Cure for Christ. I'm your host Alexandra Alvarez, and today we're talking about a struggle. So many of us face, but rarely know how to overcome spiritual paralysis. What do you do when fear, anxiety and past trauma keep you stuck even when your heart longs to trust God and move forward in your purpose? I've been there more than once, and even recently in my marriage. I mean, it's bound to happen. Two imperfect people with wounds in history bumping into each other, and I believe God allowed it not to shame us, but to lovingly reveal what's still ruling our hearts beneath the surface. So I know it's love. But to be honest, it's been painful and I've felt frustrated, and honestly, I've also felt broken hearted. But as I sat with God, he met me right there. He brought people into my life to walk with me to speak. Truth and healing started to unfold. It is a slow process, but it's real, and it's worth it because there's nothing more important than growing closer to God even through the heart. And that's exactly why I brought today's guest, Eric Gilbert onto the podcast. Eric is a Christian leadership and mental health coach, and a founder of courageous calling. He helps high achievers break free from anxiety, burnout, and fear-based living by integrating faith, neuroscience, and bold, practical action. With over 15 years of experience and a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy, he's guided hundreds of professionals who felt stuck, overwhelmed, or spiritually drained into lives of renewed purpose and confidence rooted deeply in Christ. In today's episode, we explore how our brains, our faith, and our past experiences intersect, and how God meets us In the middle of it all, we talk neuroscience, faith, trauma, scripture, and how to find peace when life hasn't gone the way you thought it would. Are you ready? Let's listen now. Welcome to Curious for Christ. Do you ever find yourself lying, awake at night wondering about God's plan for your life? Maybe you wake up with big dreams, but feel unsure where to start or what your next step should be. If you're curious about exploring your faith and finding purpose, then you've come to the right place. Hi, I'm Alexandra. I too felt lost and sure of the direction my life was taking. I yearned to understand my purpose and have someone guide me, but I kept telling myself I was too busy. The timing wasn't right, and my lack of clarity prevented me from being consistent until I found Christ. He brought peace into my life and revealed the way to find purpose by anchoring myself. In him. In this podcast, we'll journey together exploring the Bible to gain a deeper understanding of him and cultivate your own personal relationship with Christ. So open up your Bible, put in those earbuds and listen up because God is speaking to you. He's making everything new and you don't wanna miss it. Let's get started. Good morning. Thank you Eric for joining me on Curious for Christ. I'm excited about our conversation today. Me too, Alexandra. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here with you. Yes, of course. So Eric, let's just dive in as you are a Christian leadership and mental health coach. And I always like to start my episodes with our personal stories'cause I feel like they they carry so much value and they're very impactful. So can you start by sharing your personal story? What led you to help Christian navigate fear, anxiety, mental health through both faith and neuroscience. Yeah, I'm happy to share. It's been quite a journey to say the least. If I could try to boil it down to a key pivotal time in my life around college was where I had actually a professor who was an atheist, but he said, whatever you believe you can believe. He just said, just make sure that your life actually reflects what you believe. In other words, if somebody hit the mute button on me, and I can't say any words, but they can only look at my life, would they be able to gather that I truly, sincerely love Jesus and that I live for Jesus. I knew in that time in my life, no, that's not the message they would take. They would think that I was just like any other college kid trying to fit in, trying to go to parties, trying to dig girls where I could, those kind of things, and trying to learn a thing or two in college with my classes, but mostly my life is more consumed with myself and success and what I wanted to do to fit in. God really grabbed a hold of me in college to be able to say I had to answer the question, is God really? There? And is he really worth living wholeheartedly for? Because I grew up in a Christian home, but I was just like, if you, if God's not real or if this is just something that I've been told from my parents, but it's just stories, then I don't wanna live for it. And I wanna be willing to leave all this behind. But if this is real, I have to be able to give my whole life because Jesus is worthy. Oh my whole life, if this is real, if he's really the God of the universe and I'm just one out of seven plus billion people and he cares for me. You can go, you can guess where I'm gonna go. I was able to get around other college kids and see them authentically living out their faith and that to me was so contagious.'cause I'm like, I'm growing up in a private school. I saw so many of my friends. Where it was just like, I don't know if you can relate to this, but they would say, I love Jesus. I'll go to church and then I'll do whatever I want on Friday night, and then I'm gonna do whatever I want with my lifestyle.'Cause it's my life, quote unquote. And so that message to me was so confusing really, because I just felt like there's no real clarity, like who really lives authentically for God and still has personality. I felt like all these people were more like my dad's age, my mom's age. Where at the time, in my twenties, I'm like good for them. They're happy, but they're also settled in their life. They've already figured out so many things in their twenties and thirties, and I don't feel like they're in this, the youth of life with all these major life decisions. So when I started to really get ahold of that in college and say, I wanna live wholeheartedly for God, I had to be willing to even lay down some of those friendships and say, I'm willing to say if my friends don't wanna be around me anymore. I'm willing to journey this alone because I'm,'cause God is worth the journey. God is the, if he's my closest companion and even my only companion, then it's worth it. And so I got really into a space of where I wanted to wholeheartedly for God, and thank God he brought community into my life and other believers. Through that I started to do youth ministry, so I started to help out. Other teenagers and things like that. And then I got into this space of realizing for myself, I had wrestled so much with anxiety that I was showing up even as I'm trying to do ministry where I'm working in this office in a town called DeKalb in Illinois. And even then I was struggling with wanting to get out of the office even though I sincerely believed Jesus, that they could change people's lives. Because I would get so anxious about what are people gonna think or what's gonna happen, all this kind of stuff. And that in combination with starting to work with some of the youth. One of the youth, just as an example, I'll call him Travis. His mom was struggling as an alcoholic and so he's trying to work on his faith and trying to get. Things right with God. And then at the same time, he's stuck into the same pattern whenever he gets home with all this dysfunction. And so I started to say, what's it look like to try to go deep into the levels of not just knowing how to share the gospel, but try to be able to help set whole family free so they can wholeheartedly live for God. And so that's took my journey of overcoming my own anxiety to be able Tori really try to help families as a whole, and God led me to where I am now. That's great. That's great. There's so many scriptures that come to mind because God is whatever we go through, there's always something in the Bible that talks about that. It's living and active. Yeah. And first Timothy four talks about what your life and doctoring closely but by doing so, we can save both ourselves. Here the people that are watching us. Even from someone who was not a believer, it's hypocrisy, right? You say one thing, but then you live another. Exactly. Is to be one and to have the heart and then the actions that follow whatever is within, and then when your heart is in the right place, God always brings people to help along the way. We not, isn't that buzzing? Yeah. Alone. It's a beautiful journey to see how God definitely is with us and. To be found and wants us to have a meaningful life in the sense that when we shine, we reflect his love for us. And he desires to be known, to be found. And yeah, that was an awesome thing too, is when I started to let go of the fear of people like me or they don't like me, am I gonna fit in? Do I have friends or not? I'd start going to these college parties,'cause those were the friends I was around, right? But instead of drinking, I would be there with my solo cup, with a cup of water, and I would just sincerely try to love on people and just say here's what Jesus has really been doing in my life. What are you going through? What do you wanna talk about? What do you feel like your life is for? And those kind of things. So it felt really. Freeing and empowering to be able to say, I don't have to try to impress people anymore. I can just genuinely share what Jesus is doing in my life, and if they reject me. If they don't wanna talk to me for the rest of the party, that's okay. They don't get it. But I sincerely wanna be the person that just says, Jesus changed my life, and I know that there's hope for you too. And I know that there's more than what you're living for. If your life is only for a party, there's so much more to live for. Yes, definitely. And it's true that sometimes we people party to avoid those type of conversations that you work. It's easier with loud music, right? Yeah, exactly. Hence the anxiety sometimes when you have to. Face yourself and what's really underneath. Unless we do that and face them with God, we just push them down and we don't really deal, but we carry them nonetheless. Yeah, exactly. Just show up sideways. They show up over here and over there'cause we haven't gone, it's gonna be there and it's, we have to face it. So might as well face it with a God that loves us and cares and understands. And walk the walk and so that leads me to this question. Why do you think. So many sincere Christians stay stuck in fear and anxiety or even spiritual paralysis. Even though they know the Bible, they pray regularly. I myself can sense that when I do something new or will God be there with me? The Bible mentions so many times, hundreds of times to not fear and even more that talks about the peace that surpasses understanding. And so why do you think that is? Yeah. This is such a great question and it took me a while to try to like process, where's this coming from in our culture and even at times of Bible, like you said, fear is just something for humanity that we struggle with so much. And I. I basically have boiled it down to three main reasons. I call it like the three Bs behind it. I feel like one of the biggest things that we're struggling in our culture today is busyness, just the ability to be distracted if we want to. We got phones, texts, emails, calendars, agendas sports for our kids, all sorts of things that can go on at any time. I remember this might date me a little bit, but I remember back in high school when it was mostly about the main TV shows that you would watch and things like that, and there wasn't much happening for social media yet, so it didn't feel like there was so much noise to keep up with, but now it feels like there's all sorts of busyness everywhere. With all our demands on life. And so that keeping up with things, social media, all that kind of stuff is only snowballing and compounding the problem if we're not careful and conscious of how we're using it. The other part of the busyness too is it keeps us to the point we never actually get to, like we said, look, look at what's going on inside of us, what does it actually mean for me to slow down and be aware of my anxiety? So I think consciously can give it to Christ. When I say give my anxiety to Christ, a lot of times people think just about I just wanna give him my thoughts, but what I mean is giving him our whole being with even our body. I don't know if you're familiar much with the ability to reset our nervous system and how we are able to work with our body. I like to say that motion is the most powerful way to shift emotion. So if I'm not conscious of what I'm feeling.'cause I'm busy with my phone, I'm never gonna be able to be in a place where I can make a change. And then unfortunately, a lot of times for Christians, I think we get conscious of okay, I'm anxious. But then we just stop at saying I'm just going to say a prayer or have this thought. And we don't realize we can also use our body in our worship to God to say, I wanna combine it all together. I wanna love Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. The first one is busyness. The second one is that we get into burying ourselves. So I bury who I really am, and this was probably the biggest concern I had if I looked at the core level of what was going on with me in college, was I felt oh man, if I'm, if I really try to go all in for Christ, I'm just gonna be a performer. I'm just gonna be inauthentic. I'm just gonna try to memorize the main verses as possible. So I can say the right thing in the right moment and then try to outdo others with how much I know of scripture or how many prayers I could say and all this kind of stuff. And unfortunately, I think part of this might be from social media as well, but it's becoming easier and easier to hide behind a mask these days of people who are really impressive online. Man, they got it all figured out. They got how many followers. They got, how many reactions they got, how many people to give or to pray or to do whatever, and then I might think to myself, man, there's no way that God would really wanna spend time with somebody like me, or there's no way that God really desires me when I have nothing figured out. And these people seem to have millions of followers and already a huge ministry affecting millions of lives, so there's a lie that gets in there, right? And so a lot of that is, if I can look at where I've been burying myself, what was the lie that I believed that caused me to become inauthentic, that caused me to try to perform for Christ rather than just being with Christ abiding with him. And then the third one is broken relationships. Broken relationships unfortunately are nothing new. But the rapid rate that relationships happen now in our fast-paced culture, it's like, if we're not careful in high school, it can be like you got a new boyfriend or girlfriend every month if you wanted to, especially for women. I especially feel for women because it can feel like there's so many messages you can receive as I work with a lot of men, sometimes they'll talk about, or women too, somebody who's trying to sneak in there to break their relationship, to break out the things that God's given them to mess up their blessing that they receive from God. And try to feed those lies of, you're not good enough. No one's really there for you, you know you're gonna screw up anyways. Any of those kind of lies that have been buried. If they come into my living right, if I believe the lie and come into agreement with it, then it's going to break my relationships. So as I work with people, those are the three biggest things I see with fear, anxiety, being busy, being buried, and having broken relationships. Yeah. Satan has always deceived us, right? And maybe it's different platforms, different ways, but the same old, right? Of the deceit and doubting God's care, God's goodness is he holding up on me? Yeah. In comparison definitely the platforms now make everything accessible so we have more to worry about, to compare ourselves with. It is okay if I give an example of somebody I've worked with around this. Sure. So a person that was coming to my mind, I'm gonna call him Brandon when I met him, like a achieving young man, bright young man, he's in engineering and things like that. And he not only wanted to be an engineer, but he was trying to use it for a purpose. He wanted to see God, are you calling me to try to go overseas and to be able to build. Like an engineering firm out there so that it blesses a lot of people. And so he came to me with a lot of questions and confusion like, God, what are you calling me to? I feel like all this responsibility'cause I've completed these programs and I've got a good job. But also he had a terrible breakup recently and unfortunately the message that he kinda received from that breakup from his ex was like, Brandon, you're the problem. Brandon, you're the one that messed this up, Brandon. You don't really know how to love people. You don't really know how to do life. You don't really know how to love God, all those kind of things. And so he is struggling with internalizing a lot of these messages, and so he started to notice himself, if I'm not careful, I'm gonna start to live inauthentically. I'm gonna try to prove my worth, prove who I am. Overcompensate for things or get into my work too much and try to achieve so much of my career that it's gonna make my ex jealous that she ever left me. Or if I just get so busy with so many activities. And so we, we slowed it down to be able to look at those relationships and everything, and we looked all the way into the past with brokenness with his mom and all his relationships and everything. And long story short, basically he was able to look at the patterns of how he'd been hurt, especially with his mom. And how he has gotten to the habit of trying to strive to always prove his worth and being able to connect with Christ. To know that Jesus always said, Brandon, I love you so much. I made you my image and I died for you. So you don't have to prove anything to anyone. Just be with me. And then the a awesome thing in that journey was I got the journey with him through a season. He got clarity on his career of where to work and then. We got to the point where he, it was about a year later, he started a healthy relationship, a good relationship, honest with who he is, what he wants to live for, all those kind of things. And then him and that girl got to the point where they're married today and they have a little child. They have a little boy together. So all that to say, we get real about these things and we're able to move past them and through them life can really change. That's a great story. Thank you for sharing. Thanks man. So you often talk about neuroscience based reset or overwhelmed Christians. What exactly is that and how does it align with scripture? How did you come about? This concept practice. Yeah. Thanks for asking that. So a neuroscience-based reset, right? That might sound really new for a lot of people, is it even big biblical? So the way to think of this is like I said, I frame it in the greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord of God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. So being able to do a neural base reset is engaging our whole person, our whole being. To say, I wanna be radically released from stress, from all this anxiety, all this stuff that I've put internalized inside of me over the years so that I can wholeheartedly serve God, be totally free to serve God. So if you've ever had a moment where it felt like, man, I feel like in this moment my mind and my hearts are finally lined up together in agreement, it finally feels not only am I saying the right words. But I'm believing it and I'm experiencing God. That's the kind of power we're talking about here is like the neuroscience based way to say, my body, my whole being is in alignment to serve the Lord a lot of times, just to try to make the picture more clear when I get into fear or anxiety. A lot of times it actually gets into my nervous system. So the way I like to describe this is if you, at least for me, when I remember being a teenager, I started going to the gym. I didn't really know exactly what I was doing, and I started using these weights, and I remember particularly like the bench press, I'm like, what is this exercise? It didn't feel natural right away. But the same way that you build muscle by learning to do the exercises, you're also able to develop. Your vagus nerve, your vagal to your ability to handle stressors. So a lot of times, you're doing well with this and the reset, if you're no longer saying I just know how to manage stress instead, this is the capacity to grow so that my body isn't such a place. That I've released stress away. And so when it comes into because life is gonna be stressful, things are gonna happen. But when it comes into the picture, now I have a greater capacity to push that weight off. I have the capacity to be released from it and no longer carry it inside of me. Yeah, I've experienced that myself definitely. Not through working out, but movement walking. Processing my thoughts David was called the man after God's own heart. His faith is a faith that was, he was connected with the heart. It's not something from our minds sometimes we can believe. But we don't believe in our hearts. And even Satan believed in God, so Yeah. Yeah. do you believe in God good. And demons do and they shudder. That's convict and curse of whoa. Exactly. Yeah. So it's important work, right? To make sure that we have, that we are cut to the heart, that we are open. The heart is deep waters, right? And so where everything kind of starts. Yeah. And a simple example of this from scripture, if you wanna know, like more the biblical side of it is if we know, look at Elijah in his life, there's a time where he calls down fire from heaven and burns the altar. It's at least in my mind, I just imagine this amazing display of God's power, right? And then all these prophets of Baal are defeated and then it seems like, now God's people are gonna get it. But then the next part after that is Queen Jezebel says, I want Elijah dead. And you'd think he'd be full of faith and let's go, but instead he runs away in fear. And so that's kinda like the moment of the fear, the anxiety taking hold of him. And so it's leading his body to fear, fight or flight. He's in that mode. The interesting thing that God does is. A lot of times we know the part of the gentle whisper, but even before that happens, God actually meets him with an angel when he is lying down under this bush. And the angel does some very practical things, which is gives him some touch, be able to give him a meal, and then be able to put into a sleep. So there's a whole reset process even in this to be able to say, I want to get established and rooted and safe with God first before I just go straight into the battlefield. And then you can even think of Paul and his ministry too, right? When he has the whole vision on the way to Damascus, he has three years where he goes into the desert area and he goes to be with God to really get clear. God, how do I know that you're so real? And what is my life really living for now? And then he begins his ministry. So it's kinda like that very important step that I think so many Christians miss of, okay, I love God, I'm ready to serve. Let's go. Action. It's this very important neuroscience based way to reset ourselves to make sure that we're properly equipped for being able to go and serve God, to be able to go into the battle. That's great. My husband is a lot more trusting. He doesn't need as much processing, he just trusts. And I think that God knows that about our needing to rest and his timing. And I think that that is another way to trust more that God really knows what we need. We need to reset. We're not ready for whatever task he has for us. And it, he does that very thing that science now discovers or understands about our brains. And our bodies were fearfully and wonderfully made. Yeah, that's often that your husband's, that way, that level of Yeah. No, he's great. That's why we're together because I'm different, but I do like to understand. It helps me let go and trust wholeheartedly. Even the podcast, the process of the podcast is really an anchor to understand God's process and then being able to do his will.'Cause that's the goal, right? Is to Yeah, exactly. To do his will. What does it mean to renew our minds, not just spiritually, but also physiologically? You've touched on that. It's like Romans 12 verse two meets brain science. About being transformed by the renewing of our mind to not be conformed to the word. So you've touched on that once we are reset in our nervous system, then we still need to be renewed, in our minds. Yeah. It doesn't come automatically. I'm assuming. What do you have to say on this? Yeah the first part is renewing our mind is so much more than just affirmations, than just, stopping and eliminating ne negative thoughts. It's a whole process of retraining our body, retraining our heart and soul, so that we know, kinda like your, you said with your husband, right? He knows that he can trust. It's kinda like I can trust when I know that I'm safe. And it's being able to experience that kind of safety, that truth with God. So that fear can be overcome now. So renewing my mind is, it's a whole being experience with being able to do that. So I don't know if you're familiar with this concept already. They found a lot. In recent studies with science and everything that the brain is neuroplastic, right? There's a lot of neuroplasticity, which means it can actually rewire itself based on what you focus on, what you believe, and what you repeatedly do. So why does that matter? If I wanna renew my mind, the things that I do, the things that I focus on, and the things that I believe will help me to actually make those changes. So if I'm trying to renew my mind, one of the best ways I said this before, but is to be able to know that motion helps to shift emotion. It sets everything else in place. So if I change my state, in other words, if I and going through life and I have my hands on my head and I'm always looking down and I'm always feeling oh, there's so much pressure. Things are so hard. Then that state of keeping my body there is gonna keep me in a state in the pattern of perpetuation on all the. Things that are messed up in my life. All the things that I feel like I'm just ruminating on negativity. That's also the problem with if I'm on my phone and I'm always staring at this and I'm putting my head down in that position, i'm putting my body in such a state that it says I guess I just gotta dwell here in this negativity. So if I focus on changing what I'm doing with my body, that can be through my breathing, my prayer, the ability to focus on Christ. Even those somatic exercises, movements with my body and my breath can all be ways that now I'm opening up my mind to be renewed so I can focus on the truth from scripture. So now I actually have the capacity to experience the power of scripture. The scripture's always been there. It's always been true, but I've been so distracted or in the wrong posture that I'd never been able to really experience it on the inside. Now that I'm focused on Christ and no longer distracted, now I can actually feel and ta like the word says, right to taste and see that God is good. It doesn't say memorize and re recall, but to actually experience it in a real moment. So then being able to renew your mind is like rewiring your nervous system to be able to get your whole being in alignment. Does this vary from person to person? Some people may prefer to be in a place of calm with candles and to be present with God. Some prefer to be outdoors in nature, walking in nature. Or is it different? Yeah. Yeah, it's absolutely can be different. There's a really cool, I forgot who wrote it, but there's even a book called Like The Nine Sacred Pathways, and a cool thing in that book is it talks about the ways of experiencing God. That some people really feel close to God through nature. Some people feel really close to God through traditions or services. So there's nine different ways that it talks about within that book of being able to experience God's presence. So it's not like a cookie cutter approach with God, which is a beautiful thing.'cause God didn't say, you know what, I'm just gonna make 7 billion Erics in the whole world with one person. He wanted to make us in his image so that he could show all the multi-facets of who he is through us, because he is an infinite being, right? There's infinite ways that he can express himself. And so the power is being able to say, Alexandra, I made you this way, so that you can express the beauty of who I am in these areas. And people can realize these characteristics of who Jesus really is when you live this out. So that's the beauty in this whole process of renewing our mind is it might look like some different scriptures. It might look like some different experiences. It might look like going out in nature. Some people prefer stillness and line the candle. It's not gonna all look the same. And that's the idea of the beauty of the body of Christ, is it I'm going to reach certain people that resonate with my message in a certain way and you're gonna reach other people that I will, I'm not able to reach. So if we just try to mimic all of each other, we're literally saying this whole group of other people, this is gonna sound harsh, but they can go to hell because I don't even want to try to reach out to them in the way that God designed me to do. But when I live out authentically what God's given me to do and who I am, then I'm able to bring heaven to earth. I'm able to reach the right people, that God is in alignment for me, for his purpose. Thank you for sharing. I'd love to talk more about Courageous Calling and the Rising Comm Center. Also you have a free resource that speaks to overthinking, fear of failure, spiritual paralysis. Can you tell us about that and where our listeners can access it and find you, connect with you in your work? Thanks for asking that. The Rising Calm is the name of my organization. My practice that I have, we have right now a staff of five people. And so we're all working together in Florida. We have offices in Gainesville, Orlando, Jacksonville. We also meet with people virtually. So even if you're overseas, we are able to work with a lot of different people. So kinda like I was saying, it's not just my skillset. But it's our whole team that has different specializations to help people. Usually. Of course, with rising column, we're focused around the key areas of anxiety, stress, the nervous system, and relationships, those broken relationships too. So if somebody's interested in that and saying I wanna meet Eric and his team, and I want to be able to even have a free phone consultation, be able to talk with you about if I'm the right fit and what you're looking for you can just go to Rising Calm, and be able to just go on there for scheduling a session or scheduling a consultation. And then courageous calling is for the people that are like I feel like I'm pretty calm, but I really don't know what God's calling me towards. Like I feel like I've got more of the anxiety thing, it's a bit better, but what in the world am I supposed to do with my life and how do I actually take the action? Like I have this huge vision or desire to be used by God, but how in the world do I become courageous enough to step forward with wisdom and to do it well? So courageous calling has a whole faith over fear program to be able to help. Do a 10 week deep dive. Here's how you break out anxiety. Here's how you step forward to your calling with courage and with purpose and with a community so that you'll be likely to succeed and be blessed in what you do. And so that website is just courageous calling.com. A cool thing about that one is if you click on there, you can see a free quiz that will help you with to know how's my level of anxiety, how's my level of confidence? And some free tools on there as well with this whole idea of how do I reset my nervous system. Great, thank you so much. I put all the links in the show notes it seems really interesting and needed in today's society. What would be a final word of encouragement that you'd like to leave our listeners with today? A final word is I was recently came across this story and I don't know if you've ever heard of Laura's story or not. But she wrote that song that says what if his blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? Nice voice. It was like a huge song, like when it came out and everything. I think it's still really big, but I didn't know. The backstory was that she was a worship leader for her church and then she married her husband Martin, and then he got di diagnosed with a brain tumor. And so it went from we're gonna lead worship and help change the world to like, I've gotta concentrate on my husband and see if he's gonna actually live through this thing. The good news is that he lived the hard truth was that he now has long-term disabilities from it, which was like memory loss, impaired vision, all those kind of things. And so the dreams that she had for being able to say I thought my ministry was gonna look like this. But now my whole life has changed because my husband has changed and I wanna be. Faithful and still in my marriage. But how do I do this? God. And so she ended up writing that song in a moment of surrender. So just to all that to say if you're ever at a crossroads in your life where I thought my life was gonna look this way. I had that in my own life where I thought, I'm gonna do this kind of ministry for college students and this way at this time. And then. Due to some of my own shortcomings and failings, it didn't work out that way, and then I had to be able to still say, okay, God, I want to clinging to you even if I don't know where I'm going with my life. And so that's kinda the encouragement I just wanna say is you don't have to have it all figured out. Especially if you wanna meet with me and talk with me. I'm not expecting you to tell me, here's your 10 year vision and plan. It's okay if you feel like I'm a hot mess and I'm just trying to hang on through the day I've been there. And we can journey through that whole thing together. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation and I look forward to more perhaps in the future. I feel like it's been too short and we can Oh, me too. Talk forever about this. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. What a blessing to be here with you. Thanks so much for what you do. I think it's awesome that you're helping so many people to get curious for Christ. Amen. Thank you. Wow. Eric's story is such a powerful reminder. Fear doesn't have to define us, and healing really is possible. God has every answer we need, but so often he brings healing through people. Whether it's someone like Eric who's trained to walk with others or through a trusted friend, a quiet moment of. Prayer or even walking through the doors of a local church. You don't have to stay stuck. And as we close, here are a few key takeaways. I hope we'll stay with you this week. Number one, the three Bs that keep us spiritually stuck, busyness, burying, and broken relationships. Eric identifies three common traps that keep us frozen in fear, busyness, staying distracted to avoid discomfort, which only makes things worse. Burying, suppressing emotions and losing authenticity. Broken relationships often fueled by lies we believe about ourselves and about God leading to isolation. Recognizing these patterns is the first step toward healing and truth. Number two, fear isn't failure. It's a signal. Your anxiety might be your soul asking to feel safe again, don't ignore it. Bring it to God. Psalm 56, verse three says, when I'm afraid, I put my trust in. You are not meant to mimic anyone. Number three, God's calling for you is personal. You won't find it by copying someone else. Ephesians two verse 10 says, we are God's handy work created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Number four. Healing is spiritual and physical. God works through scripture and your body both matter to him. Mark 12 verse 30 says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Number five, you don't need to have it all figured out. Your next step isn't perfection, it's presence. Keep showing up with God. James four verse eight says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. If this conversation spoke to your heart, I want to leave you with this promise from Psalm 34 verse eight. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Friend, you don't have to live in fear. You're not too far gone. Healing is possible, peace is available, and even in the middle of exhaustion, God is reaching for you. Thank you for joining me today on Curious for Christ. I pray this episode gave you hope and practical tools to walk by faith. Don't forget to subscribe so that you don't miss next episode. I will see you next week. Bye for now. Hi, I hope you enjoy today's episode. If so, would you like to take 30 seconds and share it with a friend who may also struggle with knowing God and his purpose for their life? Also, leave a review on Apple Podcast and let me know what topics you'd like to hear about in the future. Your voice matters. I'll meet you back next Friday. For another episode.