S7 Bonus 7 | Birthday Episode: Living in My Spiritual Promise Land
It’s Carla’s birthday today! And she’s sharing 4 pivotal things that took her from spiritual wilderness in her 20s and 30s and brought her into her spiritual Promise Land in her 40s. You will want to grab a pen and paper 0 and get your heart ready for the wisdom she’s about to share!
Get all the resources she mentions at www.carlaarges.com
Did you know that Carla is a Christian Mental Health and Life coach?
See if working with her is what you need in your current season.
Book a discovery call today!
Bible Study Habit
Carla emphasizes the transformative power of daily Bible study, stressing its role in deepening faith and developing maturity.
Rooting Identity in Christ
Before her forties, Carla struggled with identity crises. She shares the importance of rooting one's identity in Christ, freeing oneself from the opinions of others.
Taking Control of Mental Health
Carla discusses her journey of mastering mental health, advocating for a holistic approach involving therapy, medication, renewing the mind, and self-care.
Allowing God to Use You
Carla highlights the shift from feeling disqualified by struggles to embracing them as tools for God's work. Success is measured by obedience, not worldly standards.
Action Steps:
Develop a Bible study habit: Start with Carla's Bible study 101 course.
Root your identity in Christ: Use affirmations and scriptures to redefine self-perception.
Take control of mental health: Seek specialized help, practice daily renewal of the mind, and focus on physical and mental well-being.
Allow yourself to be used by God: Embrace your struggles and surrender to God's plan, trusting in His definition of success.
Connect With Carla:
Inquire about 1:1 coaching ---> carlaagreswellness@gmail.com
Join In His Image Wellness Collective ---> carlaargeswellness@gmail.com
Come hangout on IG with me @carlaarges
Check out the blog
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Carla Arges: Hey friends, welcome to Affirming Truths. I'm your friend and host, Carla Arges. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ. My hope is that you will leave each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode and it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review.
[00:00:30] Carla Arges: I am so glad you're here. Let's get started.
[00:00:36] Carla Arges: Hello, friends. Welcome to this special bonus episode. Why is it special? You may ask. Well, today is my birthday. That's right. October 26th. It is my birthday and I am so pumped to be spending it with you on affirming truths. Let's go. I want to share with you [00:01:00] some incredible things that I have developed In my forties that have been so pivotal in making this time of my life, the best it's ever been.
[00:01:17] Carla Arges: Like you could not pay me money to go back to my twenties or my thirties. Those were times of pain and struggle and wrestling with God and confused about my identity. Um, Transcribed ignoring the truth about my mental health. It was a time where I was trying to do things on my own. I wasn't maturing as a Christian.
[00:01:40] Carla Arges: I wasn't developing deep faith. It was a time where I tried to fix everything on my own. And if I couldn't, I would flee. It was a time of depression, of anxiety, of shame, of, of guilt. It was a time of rage. Oh, the rage. [00:02:00] It was a hard time. And my 40s, I'm 44 today, have been a breath of fresh air. They have been so transformational.
[00:02:12] Carla Arges: My life in my forties has been so incredible, filled with joy and hope and courage and steadfastness and faith and trust and blossoming relationships, peace and comfort, like the forties have been amazing. And I was asking myself, what was pivotal? And taking me out of the dark despair turmoil into what I would describe right now as my promised land.
[00:02:47] Carla Arges: I am living in my promised land in my 40s. And that's not to say there's not trials or struggles. Living on earth means you're going to have trials and struggles. They [00:03:00] exist. My, my life in my forties have not been trial free or challenge free. Quite the opposite. There's been quite a few challenges, but they have not broken me.
[00:03:11] Carla Arges: They have not deterred me. They have not weakened me. If anything, I am stronger in Christ now than ever. And I was thinking, what is it? Is it just magically that happens in your forties because of maturity and wisdom, and I can tell you the answer is no. When I look back at what I have established in my life to create this environment, there is action you have to take.
[00:03:42] Carla Arges: And I'm convinced that this isn't reserved for your forties. If you have been living a life of depression, anxiety, rage, confusion, um, hopelessness, helplessness. All of that, no matter what age you're at, you can [00:04:00] turn it around and come into your promise land. And I'm going to share with you the four things that I actively did coming out of my thirties, going into my forties that have brought me into what I would say right now is my spiritual promise land, my spiritual promise land.
[00:04:22] Carla Arges: And this can happen, friends, I'm convinced in your twenties, in your thirties, in your fifties, in your sixties, at any opportunity, at any moment, you have the ability through intention, perseverance, and partnering with the Holy Spirit to come into your spiritual promise land. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing?
[00:04:52] Carla Arges: Now when we think about the promised land and we think about the spies that went, so many came back [00:05:00] saying, Oh, it's impossible. Did you see the Canaanites there? They're giants. There's all these obstacles. I can't come into the promised land. It's not going to happen. And so when I share with you the things that I had to do to come into my promise land, I want you to make sure that you are not taking the position of those 10 spies.
[00:05:22] Carla Arges: But instead, you're coming with a Joshua and Caleb attitude, that yes, we can take this land because God is for us, and if God has promised us this land, he will be faithful to deliver it to us as we go forward in obedience. I want you to listen to this with a Joshua and Caleb attitude. Are you ready? It's just four things.
[00:05:46] Carla Arges: I'm not going to give you a list of 50 things. Don't worry. Four things that I drilled down that have been pivotal in coming into my spiritual promised land when I, in my forties, let's go. Number one, [00:06:00] I developed a Bible study habit. I developed a Bible study habit prior to my forties. I did not have a Bible study habit.
[00:06:11] Carla Arges: I would read devotions for sure, but I did not have. A Bible study habit. I was not daily opening my Bible, going into the word, spending time with Jesus, learning about who God was through his revelation of the word. I wasn't doing that. I was staying. An immature Christian, because the only way to grow immaturity in your Christian walk is to really know the word.
[00:06:47] Carla Arges: I was staying an immature Christian, and what was the product of being an immature Christian? Well, think about that in terms of human development. When you're immature, you're tossed [00:07:00] by circumstance. You react poorly, you take things out on your relationships, you, you are egotistical, you blame everyone else around you rather than taking responsibility.
[00:07:16] Carla Arges: I was an immature Christian. In order to have the deep level of faith that you will not be shaken in times of trial, in order to have that deep faith to go where God is calling you in those scary spots, in order to have that deep sense of trust and awe in God. You have to get into the Bible. You know, I'm convinced that part of the reason why Joshua and Caleb were so sure of God being able to deliver them to promised land is because of their time.
[00:07:54] Carla Arges: And the word, their time getting to know God, they didn't have the [00:08:00] Bible like we do. They didn't have that luxury, but they had Moses connected to God. They spent time with God's mouthpiece, Moses, God's mouthpiece right now is the Bible. I'm convinced that because they were so intimately aware of God. That when they saw all the obstacles, when they saw all the things that scared everyone away, they stood firm.
[00:08:31] Carla Arges: Let's look at David when he, all the, all the, the armies were afraid of Goliath. He came. Why did he come with such a boldness? It wasn't because of his own strength. It's because he knew God intimately that he would not be shaken in the face of Goliath. What Goliath is in your life right now? What Goliath do you need to work through?
[00:08:59] Carla Arges: How can [00:09:00] you face Goliath with the courage and the faith of David? You get to know God. You develop a Bible study habit. This is crucial. I'm so passionate about it. I even did a Bible study 101 course. So if you don't know where to start, hit up the course, go to my website, get on, get the course. But you need to do this.
[00:09:27] Carla Arges: You want to be in your promised land. In your relationships, you want to be in the promised land with your faith and your trust. Develop a Bible study habit. That's number one. Number one. Number two. I rooted my identity in Christ. I rooted my identity in Christ. Prior to my 40s, I was constantly having an identity crisis.
[00:09:56] Carla Arges: Now part of that is borderline personality [00:10:00] disorder. I have borderline personality disorder and one of the symptoms or the struggles that we have with this. Illness is this shifting sense of self, not really knowing who you are, and you shift through that. And I experienced that so deeply, not just from my illness, but because I had illness, and because I had trauma, and because I had had such a tough life, I was I was drawing a lot of my identity from my pain.
[00:10:34] Carla Arges: I was drawing a lot of identity from my weakness. I was drawing a lot of identity from my failures. How can you walk through life with confidence if you identify as every bad thing that's happened to your life, or if you identify as your mental illness? Guys, you're not going to do it. You're not gonna walk confidently in life if you [00:11:00] identify, if you've taken on the identity of the horrible things that have been said over you.
[00:11:06] Carla Arges: I had some not, not nice things said over me by my mother as a child that I held on to, that I've gone to therapy for, that sometimes still resurface and I have to put them in their place. If you identify with these things, you will not live out a successful life. You won't be successful in your relationships.
[00:11:30] Carla Arges: You won't be successful in walking the Christian walk. You won't be successful where God is calling you. You won't be successful in overcoming your constant sense of overwhelm. When you don't know who you are, you are constantly overwhelmed. If you are someone who identifies with that, if you say, Yeah, Carla, I'm overwhelmed, always in my life, that I constantly feel overwhelmed by life and all the things going on in life.
[00:11:59] Carla Arges: You do not [00:12:00] know who you are, because when you know who you are, when you know how God has created you, when you root your identity in Christ and everything he says about you, That helps you overcome the overwhelm because now you are so sure of who you are. You are so sure that you are more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus.
[00:12:24] Carla Arges: You are so sure that you can do all things through Christ. You are so sure that you are chosen for the path that God is leading you in. You are so sure that you are loved. You don't need to chase love in all the other places. You are so sure That you know that you know who you are. Overwhelm can't touch you.
[00:12:45] Carla Arges: Not to say it doesn't sneak up from time to time. It tries to get me from time to time. But then I remember who I am. And I'm like, no. Overwhelm can't touch me. Because sometimes [00:13:00] when we're overwhelmed too, we're taking on things that we don't need to take on because we want to please people. And risk not being judged by people.
[00:13:09] Carla Arges: We care about what people think. So we say yes to so many things. Listen, it is so freeing not to care what people think about me. This is, I've seen this the most in my relationship with my sister. My sister has a very low opinion of me. Very low. We, we parent completely differently. I approach life completely differently.
[00:13:33] Carla Arges: She's, she's not saved, so she does not have the lens that I have and how I do my life. And, um, we value different things. A lot has to do with our Christian walk. Um, we, you know, even in personalities, like I value travel. I value life experience. She doesn't value those things, and she thinks that it's a waste of time, a waste of money, and all of that, and I'm [00:14:00] irresponsible, and she has very low opinion of me.
[00:14:04] Carla Arges: And this used to really bother me. I used to always feel like I had to prove myself or defend myself in her presence. Since I rooted my identity in Christ, I could care less what she thinks about me. There is so much freedom in that. There is so much freedom in not giving a hoot what people think about you.
[00:14:28] Carla Arges: You want to judge me? Go ahead. I know who I am. I'm a masterpiece. I've got handiwork. He designed me with purpose. If I'm walking in my purpose, I don't care what you think, I'm pleasing my father. That's all I'm concerned with. There's so much freedom in not caring what people think and how do you not care what people think about you?
[00:14:52] Carla Arges: You know who you are in Christ. So the second thing that I really sat down and intentionally [00:15:00] did. And this is how my, who you say I am biblical affirmation cards came to be. They were born out of this exercise of me searching the scripture and saying, who am I? God revealed to me, who am I? I'm so sick of this shifting identity.
[00:15:18] Carla Arges: I'm so sick of identifying with my illnesses and my failures and my shame and my sin, Lord revealed to me who I am. And he was so good. He gave me scripture after scripture, after scripture. my deck of who you say I am affirmation cards. There's 35 cards. I could have done six decks with the amount of scriptures he gave me.
[00:15:41] Carla Arges: He was so good to me. And I use those cards as I was redefining my identity. I use the very cards that I produced to plant in me the truth about who I was. You can get those on my website. In fact, just Grace 20. Use Grace [00:16:00] 20 and you'll get 20 percent off. Um, but they were a huge tool and resource to get me to root my identity in Christ, right?
[00:16:10] Carla Arges: Like David knew who he was. David knew who God was planning for him to be, the king. David was so sure of God's plan and God's timing that he could go to Goliath because he knew his God and he knew who he was in Christ. Right? So develop a Bible study habit. Root your identity in Christ. Here's the third thing that I did.
[00:16:35] Carla Arges: I took control of my mental health. I took control of my mental health. You may not have mental illness like I do. I have bipolar, and I have BPD, and I have suspected ADHD too, but I have all the letters. Um. But I wasn't taking control over it. I was letting it control me. And maybe you don't have actual [00:17:00] illness, but maybe you have a sick.
[00:17:03] Carla Arges: Mental health. And when I say sick, I, I describe the difference between mental health and mental illness is that we all have mental health, like we all have physical health, but sometimes we get a cold or a flu doesn't mean that we have illness like cancer and diabetes, but it means that our, our physical health is waxing and waning same with our mental health.
[00:17:26] Carla Arges: We don't all have bipolar and schizophrenia, but our mental health can wax and wane and we can get a I'm doing air quotes right now, a cold or a flu in our mental health, but I took control over it. I said, okay, how can I master this? Because up until this point, my mental illness was running the show. I was tossed and turned based on the episodes of my mental illness, the ups and downs of my mental illness.
[00:17:55] Carla Arges: And I wasn't taking responsibility. I had to take radical ownership [00:18:00] over my mental health and say, okay, how do I master this? I don't want to be a slave to my mental health anymore. I want to master it. And for me, mastering it looked like, yes, taking medication. It looked like finding a therapist that specialized in.
[00:18:20] Carla Arges: what I needed. So often I think we just say, Oh, I just want a Christian therapist and we don't look at what they specialize. Um, I'm actually, and this may, may not, you guys may not agree with this. I don't think the most important thing about your therapist is that they're a Christian. I don't think that should be your first criteria.
[00:18:41] Carla Arges: I think your first criteria should be, this is where I'm suffering. If it's trauma, then you need a therapist that specializes in trauma and trauma modalities like ART or EMDR. If you have anxiety, then you want to go to a therapist that specializes in anxiety. If you have an [00:19:00] eating disorder, You want to go to a therapist that specializes in that.
[00:19:03] Carla Arges: I needed a therapist that knew a lot about borderline personality and trauma. Um, when I was looking for a therapist for my son and he wanted a male, I needed a male that specialized in teenagers with OCD. So my first criteria is finding a specialist in what I need. I trust God with my faith. If they happen to be Christian, my therapist unbeknownst to me happened to turn out to be a Christian.
[00:19:30] Carla Arges: That was a gift from God. Great. But I need specialized help. Just like, you don't, you don't monitor or what's the word I'm looking for? You don't, um, evaluate your physical doctor based on whether or not they're a Christian. If you have cancer, you want to go see the best cancer specialist, right? You're not necessarily concerned about their faith.
[00:19:53] Carla Arges: If you, If you have diabetes, you want to find a doctor that is well versed in diabetes. And I [00:20:00] think we need to have the same approach. And I know a lot of Christians would disagree with me, but I think your first criteria in therapy is who specializes in what I need. And so I found the therapist that specialized in what I needed, which was game changing.
[00:20:16] Carla Arges: I then looked at what habits do I need to instill. To thrive with my mental health in order to master my mental health. What do I need to do? And this is where I came up with my four pillars of thriving. This is where I came up with a lot of the framework that I do with my one on one clients. But. I had to do my four pillars of thriving.
[00:20:39] Carla Arges: I had to actively renew my mind every day. What helped with that is step one and two. I had developed a Bible study habit. I was rooting my identity in Christ. That equipped me to renew my mind every day because you got to renew it with truth. I mean there's so many lies coming at us every day. [00:21:00] Lies from our past, lies from ourselves, lies from the world, lies from the enemy.
[00:21:04] Carla Arges: You have to know truth to beat back the lies. Our offensive weapon in the armor of God is the Word of God. So you have to know the Word of God. But renewing my mind daily, learning how to take thoughts captive, at first that was a very intentional thing. Like I really had to focus on, oh, okay, I see this thought.
[00:21:29] Carla Arges: I see you thought you are a lie and here's the truth. I'm going to replace it. And I was very conscious and aware of this. I've become so versed at it now. It's become muscle memory. Thought comes in. Nope. Truth. Thought comes in. Nope. You're out of here. Truth. It's on autopilot now because I've practiced it and practiced it so much and that can happen for you, too.[00:22:00]
[00:22:00] Carla Arges: I had to move my body. Now moving my body has looked a little bit differently the last few years. I don't know if you guys know this if you follow me on Instagram you do. But I had, I have a buggered up knee. I have a torn meniscus in multiple places. It's tearing away from my MCL. I've had a failed surgery.
[00:22:18] Carla Arges: So moving my body doesn't look like the same as it did before, but I still move my body. I get my steps in. I do some weights. I work within the limitations of my injuries. But I move my body. They say moving your body with some illnesses is as effective as medication. For some. Not necessarily bipolar. But for like a lot of anxiety or depression illnesses.
[00:22:46] Carla Arges: Um, or waxing and waning in your mental health if it's not, uh, clinical. Exercise. is just as effective as medication in a lot of cases. So you got to move your body. You got to [00:23:00] fuel your body. I wasn't intentional about how I was eating. Did you know that the foods that you eat can impact your mood? Did you know that, that, that your gut health can impact your mood?
[00:23:11] Carla Arges: I had to heal my gut health. They say the gut is the second brain. It's where your serotonin is actually produced. So I had to say, okay, how do I heal my gut? How do I prevent it from being all buggered up again? What foods support my mood and how I want to feel? What foods make me not feel great and don't support the energy I want?
[00:23:33] Carla Arges: And I had to adjust my diet. Is it perfect? No, of course not. But has it come a long way? Yes, it has. And then I had to learn to rest. I had to learn to be okay with the fact that with my illness and with my medications, I need more sleep. I don't, I, I get more tired and I had to learn the [00:24:00] concept of rest, not just physically, but resting my mind and resting my spirit and learning what that resting in God was like.
[00:24:12] Carla Arges: So I took control of my mental health. That has been so amazing, and these things all work together. Like before I could take, before I could develop a really great habit of Bible study, I also had to be working on my mental health. Before I could root my identity in Christ, I had to come to acceptance that my identity was someplace else and that I needed to get in the Word.
[00:24:38] Carla Arges: So these weren't things that were happening in a specific order. I was managing all of them at once. They all correlated. Number four, how I have walked into my promised land spiritually right now is I allowed myself to be used by God. I allowed myself to be [00:25:00] used by God. I before. allowed the fact that I had illness disqualify me from being used by God.
[00:25:10] Carla Arges: I before had allowed my shame of my past to disqualify me from being used by God. I had, um, allowed my desires and my picture of what I wanted my life to look like, hello flesh, um, take me off of being used by God. But when I finally said, okay, God. Here's my mess, here's all my brokenness. You've said in Romans 8 28 that you will work it all out for good.
[00:25:46] Carla Arges: You've said that you have a hope and future for me. You said that I'm your handiwork that you made for purpose, that you predestined before I was even born. Okay, here I to[00:26:00]
[00:26:01] Carla Arges: go where you lead. This podcast would never have happened if I didn't allow myself to be used by God. The coaching that I do with my clients in bringing transformation to them and helping them out of their struggles and their, their holes, their pits would not have happened if I didn't allow myself to be used by God.
[00:26:26] Carla Arges: And here's what's so incredible. God uses the thing that the enemy wanted to take you out with, and he uses it for your good and his glory. The enemy wants to take me out with my mental illness. God is using the fact that I have struggled, and in him, overcome, and continue to overcome each day, right? He has chosen not to heal me, so every day is the process of overcoming.
[00:26:58] Carla Arges: God has chosen to use [00:27:00] that for his glory. So I can point other women who are struggling to God. So I can point other Christian women who, who want to get control over their mental health, but have been told, unfortunately, from the church that it's a spiritual condition. I get to come in and say, no, God loves you.
[00:27:21] Carla Arges: God has gifted us with therapists. God has gifted us with medication. And in fact, the more you get mastered over, the more you master your mental illness, using these things, the greater. opportunity God has to use you, right. I allowed myself to be used by God. And I can tell you, it has been not the easiest journey.
[00:27:44] Carla Arges: I have been discouraged and disappointed a lot in my path of allowing God to use me. Why? Because I had my vision. I have had to overcome worldly measures of [00:28:00] success. Oh, if God wants to use me, then success in being used must look like this number of listeners and this number of downloads and this number of followers and this number of my bank account.
[00:28:14] Carla Arges: And, and at first I was looking at how it was being used, whether or not it was successful by worldly measures. And God has really had to teach me that the results are his and I may never, ever know. The kingdom impact I make, at least on this side of heaven, I had to stop looking at the worldly, worldly measures of success and understand that God's measure for success for me is my obedience.
[00:28:42] Carla Arges: How willing am I to posture myself and surrender? How willing am I to submit my ideas of success and my ideas of what my life should look like and pick up his will? That's success. That's kingdom [00:29:00]success. The results are his. And the results he's after have nothing to do with what the world considers results.
[00:29:09] Carla Arges: And I've had to come to learn that. And honestly, I still have to remind myself of that. In my world as a podcaster and as a coach and, and a course creator and all of that, they're, the world is constantly saying, these are what your success measures are. I'm bombarded by that in this world. So I have to.
[00:29:29] Carla Arges: Know who God is, know what my identity is, master my mental health so I'm not, um, swayed or discouraged or crushed by those outside metrics and trust God. It's his. It's not mine. It's not my success or failure. This is God's and he knows what success he's after, maybe just touching one person through the podcast.
[00:29:56] Carla Arges: Right. And I have to trust that. [00:30:00] So those are four pivotal things that I adopted in my forties that took me out of a land of despair, out of my wilderness, and brought me into my spiritual promised land. In my forties, I developed a Bible study habit. I rooted my identity in Christ. I took control of my mental health and I allowed myself to be used by God.
[00:30:23] Carla Arges: And I want to encourage you guys to implement those four things. And if you need help, I have tons of resources, guys. I have the Bible study 101 course. I have my affirmation cards. Um, I have my freebie of four, um, had my four pillars of thriving. It's on the website. I do one on one coaching guys. Just go to CarlaArges.
[00:30:44] Carla Arges: com. It's all there. CarlaArges. com. You don't have to do it alone. But you do have to do it. If you want to come into your promised land, you actually have to cross your Jordan. You have to face your Jericho. You have to do it, [00:31:00] but you don't do it alone. God honors every step of faith. All right, guys, thank you for joining me on my birthday.
[00:31:09] Carla Arges: I hope you guys have. A great day. Be blessed.
[00:31:19] Carla Arges: Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media. But if we're not, come find me on Instagram. At Carla Arges or at Affirming Truth. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye friends.