Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #333: What It Looks Like To Let FAITH Guide Your Path with Rachel Luna Certified Master Neuroscience Coach, Speaker, Author, and Podcast Host

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

In This Episode You Will Learn About:  Leading your life with conviction and belief The power of surrender Using faith to guide your success Resources: Website: www.rachelluna.com  Read Permission to Offend: The Compassionate Guide for Living Unfiltered and Unafraid Listen: Permission to Offend with Rachel Luna Facebook: Permission to Offend w/ Rachel Luna Instagram: @girlconfident Twitter: @iRachelLuna LinkedIn: Rachel Luna Visit heathermonahan.com Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Go to 4Patriots.com and use code CONFIDENCE to get 10% off Just go to fixswollenfeet.com/confidence to get 58% OFF NativePath Antarctic Krill Show Notes:  Who are you and what do you believe in? Rachel Luna, Certified Master Neuroscience Coach, Mindset Expert, International Speaker, and Best Selling Author of Permission to Offend, would say that she is LOVE. And that is what her philosophy on success is based around. She joins us on the podcast today to show us how we can build a life out of conviction, faith, and love for ourselves! Stop playing small. It is time to find what you believe in and start fighting for it! About The Guest: Rachel Luna is a highly sought after international speaker, best selling author, & Sales Confidence and Mindset Strategist to 6 and 7 figure entrepreneurs. Named by Forbes as one of The 11 Most Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs To Follow On Instagram, this former US Marine has a reputation for inspiring confident action and helping her clients double, triple and quadruple their income. If you're looking for sales confidence, mindset mastery and marketing strategies that will boost your revenue while building your legacy, Rachel Luna is the girl you call. If You Liked This Episode You Might Also Like These Episodes: How to turn Perfectionism into POWER! With Katherine Morgan Schafler, Psychotherapist & Author  How To Get Motivated When You Aren’t Feeling It, With Heather!  How To Go From Intimidated To EMPOWERED with Heather! 

What was your journey to faith and how did you get there? When my mother died, I had to find a way to live without my mom. When my father died, I had to really believe that there was something special about me. When I was told that there was nothing special about me, one of the things I say is that you can be confident of the destination but still scared of the journey. I've given myself the permission at every time to say, I'm going to activate my faith and what is faith. Faith is believing in things that you cannot see.

Do you have the conviction to believe? I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close-up. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest this week. Rachel Luna, she's an entrepreneur-certified master coach,

international speaker and host of the Permission to Offend Podcast. where she talks faith, worth, and wealth. Listeners in 90 countries tune in every week for radical, honest, vulnerable, and sometimes spicy, stories and conversations with Rachel and her guests. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Success, Latina, and Huffington Post, and on Lifetime, Rachel. Thank you so much for being here, my friend.

Thank you, thank you. And don't forget the Today Show. I have to update my bio, because we've got to talk about that. Isn't that crazy? Tell me, how was it? How was the experience? Like just the way that I dreamt it. You know, I'm from New York City.

So Studio 1A is part of my DNA. And it was everything that I thought it would be and maybe even a little bit more. More than anything, it was so cool to have had a vision, see it play out in your mind, journal about it. Like, just know that one day it's going to happen. And also, elusively miss it so many times. and have that moment of like, is this going to happen, releasing all emotional attachment and just having the faith and then it happens and it was amazing. Were you nervous?

Leading up to it, yes, incredibly nervous. I was so nervous because you only get three or four minutes, four minutes if you're lucky, but they kind of prepare you like you'll have two or three minutes. And you want to get all of your points in the short amount of. of time, you don't know exactly what they're going to ask you. So you have to just be ready for pretty much every eventuality. And think about this, Heather. Like your life has been so rich and full. Imagine they tell you you're going to have four minutes. It could be about anything in your whole life. And also you're thinking, I've got this book that I've got to promote. So whatever I say,

we got to make sure that we bring it on back to the book. So I invested in a media coach. to make, yeah, absolutely, because the way that I approached this was, this is something I've been dreaming about literally since I was a little girl to be on the Today Show, to just have a part in that experience. Why would I not prepare? Why would I not invest in being my absolute best? My friend Marshawn Evans-Daniels says, winging it is not a wealth strategy. And I didn't want to wing it at all. So we practiced. I had my notes. I allowed myself, I gave myself the permission to look incredibly foolish, rehearsing my talking points out loud with inflection.

I practiced my greeting to Al Roker because he's a cancer survivor and I'm a cancer survivor. And I knew exactly what I was going to say when I met him. And I think that that speaks. You and I have spoken about this to our audience before, just that power of speaking and preparing and acting as if and not acting as if like faking it, but just acting as if in terms of embodying it and seeing something in your mind before you actually experience it. You know, so I am like you, right?

Like when I had my TEDx talk, I practiced for months. I hired a coach. Like I go all in and I put the reps in. That's just when I really care, it's like, yes, I'm down for it. However, you know what's so funny. In the last month, I've coached three different people for TEDxCoc specifically, you know, because people want to go to someone who's done it before, right? And so it's so interesting to me, to your point, because I'm like you and I think like

you, I think that's the only way success can be. Here's what I found, though. And I will like, because I just have to share what truth is. I got frustrated with one guy. I said to him three months ago, you should be working with someone, you know, this is like one game time, three months ahead. He didn't. He waited until a couple of weeks ahead.

and he ended up giving the best best TEDx talk out of everybody that day. So I guess my point is this is that or my question to you is this like, how is it that sometimes some people do basically wing it and they kill it. And there's these other people that do prep prep. And then they not always, but some people show up like really nervous and like they're not able to deliver. Okay. So I feel like maybe I've already cast myself in a false light because

I am a last minute girl. There are a lot of things in my life that I will wait until the last minute. And I found out that the way the brain works, there are some people who are just predisposed. There's a chemical that we have that causes us to be this way. So the reason why I personally believe that for some things, I don't need to prep to go on stage. I just need to know who's in the audience.

and what's the goal? Where do you want to take the audience? And I'm good. And how much time I have. I can take us from A to Z. But the reason I believe that I can do that is because I have put the reps in. Like the people that can just show up like that, maybe they didn't, maybe I didn't prepare for that specific thing.

But they've been preparing all their life. They've been showing up. They are subject matter experts. They know their stuff. I know my stuff, but what I didn't know was how television, how live studio television worked. And that is what I was preparing for. Now, if it was something where it was pre-recorded, I probably wouldn't have prepared that much. Because it pre-recorded, I know that in 20 minutes, we're going to get two minutes worth of great sound bites and there's a little more flexibility.

but I did not have any kind of idea of what live television would be like. So I think that there's a little bit of merit to both. And then to your point, the second part of your question, which is how is it that some people prepare, prepare, prepare, and then they go out there and they bomb is because they are preparing to regurgitate, but they haven't prepared for the experience. So they don't think about their nerves. They don't think about, they don't put themselves,

into a scary environment. So they are preparing in the safety of nobody's watching. It's just me, myself, and I. What I did was I looked like a fool. I was doing these talking points out in the wild in front of people. And that was causing my nervous system to feel those anxious butterflies. So there is some science in my opinion, right? Like you've either done the work so much that you can.

wing it or you know you're going to put a little time and energy and and train your nervous system to be nervous. Oh yeah. No, I'm I'm for this like I we're so like when I was the thing that for me was so scary was my TEDx talk and for that thing I knew I was going to have nerves that day. So every weird stage I called a stage it wouldn't even be a stage. I had a meeting at I heart studios and I'm like can anyone that's free right now come out here for 10 minutes? And I just like like, people I got up and talked in front of random people because it was so out of my comfort zone, because I knew I was nervous, because I knew it wasn't a real stage, that any one of those moments might help me start to break through that fear,

which ultimately would add to me feeling comfortable when I was in the red circle. So I agree with you. I think that, and for anyone listening right now that gives presentations at work or you're giving a presentation at PTA, like same thing. It's no different. You don't have to go in the Today Show to say, you know what, I'm going to practice. and I'm going to ask my kid to listen to me at the dinner table. And I'm going to ask my, like, yeah, just stand up and do you.

Like, own it and just start rocking it. Because when the day comes that you actually are giving that presentation, it'll be so much better, nine out of ten times. Agreed. Agreed. All right. So this is funny. I want to break down.

You and I met on the computer a couple of years ago back in the pandemic, wasn't it? I feel like we actually had met probably a year before the pandemic, but then we actually started chatting and just a little more connection points during the pandemic. Yeah, and then we shared some virtual stages together and then we started, you know, doing things together. So we had not met ever in real life. And it was so funny because you would send me your book, you know, all your press was going out about your book launch. You're doing the Today Show. You're doing all this major press.

And I had received it and I hadn't even opened the box. This is so crazy. And this is such a good message for everyone listening right now, the importance of face-to-face. face and follow up. And you sent me a note saying, hey, I'm going to be in Miami. Do you want to get together like for an hour or whatever? You know, here's the days I'm going to be here. I'm like, yeah, of course. If you're going to be there two days, we'll find a time. We're texting back and forth. We end up meeting up for an hour, an hour and a half, whatever it was. And that day, randomly, I was asking for your advice on something. And you started talking to me about exercises

this from chapter seven in your book and sharing with me what what you wanted me to do. And it was super helpful. I was so grateful. And I left that day saying, gosh, I feel so much better walking away from seeing Rachel today, really encouraging conversation so appreciated of her. And I went home and I'm like, I got to find that book. And I went looking for the book and I opened the book. And then that weekend, I started reading the book.

But it's just so interesting to me that like you can have a solution sitting in your house readily available to you and you might not even think to go and crack it open. But for me, it took just you sending me a note and saying, hey, I'm going to be in town. Let's meet face to face. And once that happened, everything changed. Well, first of all, thank you for saying yes. Because I think for you, you'd be like, yeah, of course, no problem. And that's exactly how you responded.

But you'd be surprised how many people will say to me in DM, yeah, next time you're in town, let me know, we'll get together. And then I go and I'm in town and I'm like, hey, do you want to? And it'll be excuse after excuse and people, so many people say no to an in-person meetup. And it befuddles me because you just never know how much you will be of service and value to one another. For me, that hour and a half that we spent together was so filling. My cup was so full as well from our exchange.

And then to your point about books, I think that, because. Because we are in this stage of instant gratification and we're constantly being entertained with social media, the idea of picking up a book and having to sift through stories. And most of the time, we don't even know what we're looking for. So when we're reading a book, we go into it thinking, this is going to solve all my problems versus I wonder what interesting nuggets will I find in here. and how can number one, I apply that to my life, and number two, share that with the people around me. But we don't do that, right? We're on our phones and we're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, looking to see what bit of information is going to give us that little dopamine hit to sort of instigate motivation.

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minutes. That's tachydry.com slash confidence to get matched in minutes. I just won't forget sitting there and we were having a bite to eat and you said, oh yeah, that's actually in chapter seven. And it stuck out to me so hard. Like when I left, I just kept saying chapter seven, it's in the book. Like it's the books in your house, Heather. What are you doing? And so it was so cool.

And some of what you were talking about and I do want to get into the exercise specifically that you shared with me was a lot around faith. And I, you know, as any of my listeners that have been with me for a while now know that, you know, I do speak more and more about faith and really unlocking this idea of surrender. And that's some of what I was asking you about. And I'm interested for you to share your faith journey with everybody. And your background is so incredibly impressive and unexpected and just giving everybody a little background into who you are and how you got to where you are today. Woo!

I always feel like that's such a loaded question because you're right. My background is so cold. And honestly, it's just been laced with trauma. And my very first one-star review on Amazon came in. And I was like, yay, I've made it. I got a word for it. Yes, yes. It doesn't even bother me.

But the criticism was this book needs to come with a trigger warning. And it's interesting because we do give a trigger warning, but like after I've already dropped a couple of triggers. And here's the thing. Life does not come with a trigger warning. Before you suffer some sort of crazy trauma, there was no trigger warning when I was three and a half years old and my biological mother died from AIDS. No one prepared me for that.

At four and a half when my father, who also had AIDS, who was a high functioning drug addict and alcoholic, gave me away to my godmother, no trigger warning. When I was sexually abused, trigger warning everybody, we're talking about things that happened in real life, no one gave me a warning that, number one, this was going to happen to you, little girl. And number two, this would scar you and traumatize you and lead you down a path of low self-esteem, poor self-concept, promiscuity, and just doing things out of the character and virtue and purity that God created you with because this is an imperfect world filled with fallible human beings in a quite toxic environment.

So I've tried to give you the nutshell, like that was my life, right? Like trauma, trauma, trauma. I struggled with disordered eating and I myself am an alcoholic. I've been sober for many, many years. I stopped counting my sobriety days because, number one, I knew the day that I had overcome. and by the way, I'm privileged than that. Not every person, not every alcoholic can say that alcohol isn't a thing, isn't a struggle for them anymore.

In fact, for many, it will always be a struggle. For me, it's not. And I found that fixating on the days just kept me fixated on alcohol. So I had to have a different approach. And this is one of the reasons why I'm such a proponent for living a permission to offend lifestyle because the world is going to tell you how you should be and how you should recover and what your healing should look like. And I just don't subscribe to that. I'm a breast cancer survivor. In July of 2019, I got a phone call that changed my whole entire world. I was walking

with my kids to the park and it was a beautiful day. And the doctor called and said, Miss Luna, it's invasive ductal carcinoma. I didn't know what the hell that was. And it was incredibly traumatic in that moment. Once again, no trigger warning accompanied that phone call. The doctor did not say to me, Ms. Luna, trigger warning, I'm about to tell you something that is going to knock you off your whole, you know, rocker. And so when I got that diagnosis, Heather, I was so committed to changing my lifestyle. Here's the interesting thing. Prior to that, I had tried to be a vegan many, many years. I was interested in being vegan for my whole life, but it wasn't until I felt metaphorically that I was looking down the barrel of a weapon pointed at me that I was committed to changing my lifestyle. I had seen a documentary called Cancer Can Be Killed. Don't even bother looking for it because it's gone. And I noticed that whenever we find healing modalities, that work that are unconventional, that are half the cost of chemotherapy and radiation,

this information tends to be removed. Now, this is my personal opinion. I know that there's someone listening saying, like, she's on her soapbox. That's quackery. Call me a quack. I don't care. Because within 30 days, I was free from breast cancer. So you say about me, whatever you want to say, but I know what I know. And I know what I experienced. So I had watched this documentary months before diagnosis months before I even knew that there was a tumor growing. And in that documentary, they were talking about IPT, which is insulin potentiated therapy, also known as low-dose chemotherapy, hyperbaric oxygen, the gerson therapy, IV, curcumin, B-17, leotril, niacin, niacin, coli-toxin, all of these different modalities that were not as destructive to the body,

as conventional chemotherapy and radiation. But they're not available here in the United States. In fact, most of those practices are banned, titled Quackery. I say this in air quotes. But why? Because the pharmaceutical companies cannot patent those modalities. Okay. So the documentary ends.

I look over at my husband and I say, baby, if that ever happens to me, packed your bags because I'm not doing chemo or radiation. And I get the chills every time I tell this story because it was such a prophetic foreshadowing moment. And every time I tell this story, I'm reminded that we have the power of life and death in our tongue. Now, that's biblical. Even if you're not a Christian, even if you don't read the Bible because that's not your faith practice, I would encourage you to flip through it because there's so much wisdom. I mean, proverbs alone, you could live your whole life good on that and not even think about God.

although I do. So that moment changed the trajectory for me. Fast forward a couple of months when I get this phone call, I knew immediately I'm going to do the Gerson Therapy. I'm going to find a hospital outside of the United States that's going to help me with this. When I went to see my conventional surgeon, she was amazing. So God bless her. And I said, have you heard of this and have you heard of that. And she was like, no. I said, well, I want to do this. And she looked at me and very kind of sad. They give you every single negative statistic, every awful outcome. You're in the doctor's office for almost two hours on that first initial visit. And she's telling you everything that could possibly go wrong. And even though I walked in there with the conviction that I am

going to do this alternative treatment. By the time I left, I felt a fracture in my conviction because I was scared. And this is one of the reasons why in the book I talk about anchoring into your identity. What do you value? What do you believe? And to your, and that's in chapter two, by the way, but to your point, chapter seven, the all outcomes matrix surrendering to your faith, right? So I had to get connected to my faith. A couple of days later, I am in Washington, D.C. at a conference. And it was a conference for Christian entrepreneurs. My favorite pastor was speaking.

I go up to the altar because I'm desperate, okay? And it's interesting, when you are desperate, you will do things that you never would have thought you would do, right? So I am on my face in this ballroom. Now, think about this. You know how many people have stepped on that ballroom carpet? Well, I would have never put my face on no daggone dirty ass carpet. But in this moment, I'm just like, Lord, Jesus, save me.

And I hear God speak to me. I know this is going to sound crazy to some people. I don't care. This is my truth. This is what happened to me, as I recall. I hear God speak to me. Heather, just like you and I are speaking. And I hear God say, you will be cancer-free within 30 days.

document. And there were a couple of other things that God recommended I do. I never tell people exactly all the things because I don't want people to think that, oh, it was all those things. And that's why you're, that's the cure for cancer. And I'm going to do it because I'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Excuse me. I think that these were demonstrations of my faith. So that was July 4th at 3.25 p.m. in the year of 2019. On July 29th, 2019, my doctor called me, that's 24, 25 days. My doctor called me and said, there's no evidence of disease. Cancer is gone.

All margins clear. Now, concurrently, I've got the chemo oncologist because you don't just get one doctor when you get cancer. You have a surgeon. You have a chemo oncologist and you have a radiation oncologist. And it's a whole team and a nurse navigator. So you have a lot of people giving you a lot of opinions. My mom who raised me, and I mentioned that whole story in the book, too, is a nurse. So I have my mom, the nurse.

I have all these doctors. Everyone is giving me their opinion. And they're all telling me what they think is best for me. And the reason I share this story is because I think that for anyone listening, for you that are listening right now, you have something that you want to do. There's some goal, a dream, a TED talk. maybe you want to be in Heather's mastermind and something is holding you back because you're listening to the opinions and the convictions of other people above the voice, the soul, the Holy Spirit that is

in you, guiding you and leading you in the direction for which you should be walking. You've got to anchor into your identity and get so convicted in what you know. Now, I just knew that what I heard was right. Now, I could not bet my life on it, right? But I was betting my life on it. Does that make sense? Yeah. I didn't have any proof, but I had a knowing. And so your question, which I've taken a long time to answer, and I apologize, I'm a storyteller, your question was, what was your journey to faith and how did you get there? This one story is just a reflection. of my whole life. When my mother died, I had to find a way to live without my mom. When my father died, I had to really believe that there was something special about me when I was told that there

was nothing special about me. When Ms. Martin in the 11th grade told me that I was nothing but an average C student, I would never be more than average. I had no business being a writer or taking AP English. These were things that were said to me to my face. When my first mentor that I hired that I paid $25,000 to work with, looked me in my eye and said, you can't sell confidence, then turned around and sold a confidence course after that weekend. By the way, all the juice is in Chapter 9. I detail that story and that experience in Chapter 9.

When my next mentor after that also told me, you can't sell confidence. Meanwhile, I have successfully hosted an event. Ben called confidence activated. Why? Because at some point I decided that I was going to have conviction and faith in my God. I have a relationship with God. I'm not interested in religion. I'm interested in relationship. Religion is created by man, by fallible human beings. But a relationship is a unique spiritual connection that no one could interfere with. No one can take away your conversations with God. No one can take away that vulnerable moment in your quiet time. And no one can

take away the safety that you feel when you abide in the shelter of God or whoever your God is. But I would say the shelter of my God. So one of the things I say is that you can be confident of the destination, but still scared of the journey. I've given myself the permission at every time to say, I'm going to activate my faith. And what is faith? Faith is believing in things that you cannot see. Do you have the conviction to believe? And if you don't, what do you need to know, see, feel, hear, or experience to increase your belief?

And that's what I'm always in pursuit. If I don't believe in myself, then I think, okay, well, I don't believe in myself around this. What's missing? What am I lacking? What do I need to go? Who do I need to go? me to go talk to. What certification do I need? What credential do I think I'm missing? And is that true? Chapter 1 is all about separating the facts from the stories, right? So I might tell myself a story that,

well, I can't write a book because Ms. Martin said I was just B a C student. Okay, the fact is Ms. Martin had an opinion. The fact is there are plenty of people who are dyslexic who have gone on to write books. The fact is that Rachel, you can hire an editor to help you be a better writer, but you are a powerful storyteller. Well, maybe that may, no, the fact is, let's do this exercise real time. The fact is you can hire an editor to help you become a stronger writer. The story I'm telling myself, because I deeply believe it, is that I am a powerful storyteller. That's debatable. That's not a fact, but it feels factual to me in my life experience. and we're always in pursuit, if we want to live this life of giving ourselves permission to offend,

we're in pursuit of separating the facts from the stories, examining the meaning, and then surrendering to all possible outcomes. So when I got the diagnosis and I decided, I'm going to heal my way on my terms against what the doctors are saying, against what my mom is saying. And by the way, if you get the audiobook, you will hear this very, like, climactic moment with a comment. that I had with my mom as I'm crying and explaining to her my choices and defending my choices because as you start walking in the direction of your dreams, you will have to offend your partner, your parents, your children. Do you believe in your dream and yourself enough to fight that fight? And for me, it was never a fight. It was a labor of love. I chose to approach cancer as not a fight for my life, but a labor of love and lessons. So I had to surrender to all possible

outcomes, right? So I call it the all outcomes matrix. If this thing works and I'm cancer-free, am I okay with that? Yes, Heather, I absolutely am okay with that. If you do all these things and it doesn't work and you have to do chemo and radiation, are you okay with that? I don't like that idea, but I guess I'll, I guess I'll do that. I guess, yeah, we'll be all right. If nothing works, and this is the thing that takes you out, are you okay with that? No, hell no. I'm not okay with that.

I have kids, and these little girls need me. I am not okay with that. And so then I had to do some deeper work because there are going to be moments where there are outcomes that you're not going to be okay with, but you still have to take the action. You know, you still have to walk through the fire knowing that you're probably going to get burned

in some way, shape, or form. Or the people that follow you into the fire are going to get burned, then you're going to lose them along the way. because they just cannot go where you're going. So I started doing estate planning, like big time, life insurance, making sure that everything was set so that if the worst possible thing happened, the thing that I'm not okay with happened, could I at least be okay with the fact that my kids are being taken care of?

I could always, I will always be okay with the fact that my kids are well cared for. I will never be okay with leaving them before my time. That is true surrender. It's where you can just say, I am not in control of everything, but these are the things I'm in control of, and I'm going to give them my all, which is what I did. Here we are, four years later, cancer-free. Praise Jesus.

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slash confidence it's an incredible story however that's not the only time what you share with me in your life that you've had a journey with faith with surrender with your relationship of god that's been so incredibly profound can you share some of the other insights that you share because there's with so many which one did I tell you You. Whichever one you want to share. I was asking you. I was very curious about was it a voice that you heard. How does that information get passed? I'm so curious. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So the root of the question is the faith. How do we increase our faith? All right. So I was on a mission to figure this out. First of all, let's define what faith is. Right. So faith is believing in something that you cannot. see the literal definition, but then there's also personal faith, which is like your spiritual deity, who is, who do you believe in? Me, myself, and I, I believe in the Christian God. That is the final, the first and last authority that I subscribe to. I believe that Jesus Christ

is the Messiah. He died on the cross from my sins. I am not emotionally attached to anybody else's spirituality or salvation. I am only emotionally attached to my own because it's the only one that I have agency over. I don't have agency over what you choose to believe. All I can do is be an example of God's love. And maybe just maybe if you hear me doing my absolute best to not be a judgmental religious, you know, Bible thumper, holy holy holy voter, what do they call them? Whatever. I feel like maybe, maybe someone will be interested in knowing a little bit more. So that's the first part. And I want to make it very clear to anybody listening.

I'm not emotionally attached. Do you, boo? But how I have anchored into faith is, number one, getting into the Bible and actually reading it to understand and not just to understand it, but to question it. I had this one pastor, I'll never forget. I was living in 29 Palms, which is the desert in California. It's past Joshua Tree. There's really nothing out there.

And I was going to this church where most of the people were old white people, mostly a lot of old white men. And here I am, this little fiery Latina woman of color. And there was Bible study. I'd go every Wednesday. And every Wednesday I had the most questions. And I remember on one particular Wednesday night, I raised my hand. And as I raised my hand,

I see like two or three old dudes kind of like do one of those, you know, like they rolled their eyes. They kind of like sat into their seat. They were pissed because I was going to start running my mouth. And at the end, I go to the pastor and I say, you know what, pastor? I don't think I should come to Bible study anymore. And he goes, why not? I said, because I have a lot of questions. And I feel like the more I come here, the more questions I have. And these guys don't like it when I ask the question. And honestly, I am battling with my faith. And he said, that's all the more reason that you need to come, that you should come, because one of two things are going to happen. He said, it's very good to question your faith.

One of two things will happen. One, you'll decide it's not for you. And then you'll know. Or two, you will really have an understanding. for why you believe what you believe. So then when people ask you why you believe what you believe, you're armed. You have evidence. And he said, either way, you're going to know.

So you keep coming. You ask me all the questions. I think he liked me coming because I was helping him become a better teacher because I asked the question. For me, I'm always like, well, this does not make sense because in the front of the Bible, it said this, but in the back of the Bible, it said that. And these two things, one of these things is not like the other. So I give myself permission to question God daily.

God, I don't understand. What in the world? Why? Why would you do this? What are you telling me to do? And sometimes I hear God just the way that I, you and I are speaking. Sometimes I'll see a picture. So I don't hear anything.

I see, I think in pictures first, which is kind of weird. I hear like creatives think that way too. So I will see a picture first and then I will think like, hmm, and I'll just kind of try to look at the picture and examine it. And then I'll get a feeling. And then I will try to decode the feeling. This is why I talk about body scan in the book. It's so important to like be present with yourself. It's really important to have quiet time.

I have a prayer closet. It's not a real prayer. It's just my closet. And I put twinkle lights in the back and a little blanket. get and I go in there and I have my quiet time. So I'm interested in hearing from God. I'm interested in seeing from God. I'm interested in the word of God.

And I don't just stop at the Bible. I go into the history. I will look and see like, what the hell was going on during that time? What does the Greek translation have to say? What are some of the other commentaries? And I was telling you, I shared with you Heather,

18 minutes a day. That's all I do. Okay, someone is hearing this and thinking, who has that kind of time? The cool thing is once you start your 18 minutes, like you could go down these very interesting rabbit holes. And there's so much wisdom. Like I was looking the other day, the disciples were asking Jesus, Master, how do we increase our faith? And Jesus being Jesus did not answer their question directly, which is also very frustrating. He answered with the story. Why do you think? that Jesus spoken story so much. One know? I'll tell you.

Because the unconscious mind will pay attention to the story. The conscious mind is fighting. Whatever answer you're going to give, the conscious mind is fighting for rationale, for reason, meaning, and understanding. But the unconscious mind will just hear the story and process it. So Jesus says in this story, who knows what the story was,

but the answer was, obey God. Obey God. That is how you increase your faith. And I thought, wait a minute, what does that look like in action? Because I'm interested in not just feeling full of faith, but walking in faith. And there's a big difference. Full of faith is you have a belief. Walking in faith is you're actually doing the thing that you're believing for.

So I thought, huh, wait a second, obey God. And then I started thinking of all the things that God has told me to. do that I haven't necessarily obeyed yet. I'm like, oh, I see why. Obeying God is the way that you increase your faith. Because God tells us to do crazy, scary things on a daily basis. Some of you are listening right now and you already know that you were told to go live on Instagram and sell your thing or practice your TED Talk. And you didn't do it. Why? Because you're scared. Because you don't have the faith that people would not judge you or reject you or say mean things about you and the comments listen at this point i celebrate the mean comments because it's just helping the

algorithm do it y'all come from you that's when you know you finally move beyond your inner circle of people who are your champions and you're actually having some reach and impact so there is a good reason to celebrate tell me what does permission to offend me okay it means giving your permission to be you, to walk in your truth and in your identity. And let me be very clear what it does not mean. It is not giving yourself permission to intentionally cause harm or conflict or division. It is not meant to be a weapon, rather a tool. So when I say give yourself permission to offend, I say, look at yourself, examine, who are you? Don't tell me what you do or who you serve, right? So when I ask people, tell me, like, also, who are you?

What do you know, tell me about yourself. Well, I'm a mom. I'm a wife. I'm an author. That's not who you are. Those are things you do. Those are roles and responsibilities that you've been assigned to or you've assigned to yourself.

No, no, no, no, no. What do you value? What do you believe? What is the root? When everything is taken away, what is left? Me, I'm love. I'm all love. And love is what is love?

Love is patience. Love is kind. It is not envious. It doesn't boast, right? Love endures all things. Love also comes with correction, right? When love comes with conviction, love comes with passion. So if you want to know who I am, just look up the definition of love. And that's the way you're going to find me. So most people could not articulate that. Someone is listening to this and hard eye rolling. right now. And I know this because that used to be me. Whenever people would say like, oh, love yourself, have an intimate relationship with yourself, self-love, I would roll my eyes so hard and you people are so corny. Do you know why, Heather? I was so hurt. I was so broken. The idea that I could have an intimate relationship with myself, that I could love, that I could see myself as love,

I didn't even comprehend it. It didn't even make sense to me. And so if you are listening to my voice and you're like, this is so ridiculous, this girl is telling me, obviously I love myself. Obviously, there's something to love about me. If you're getting angry, there's a gap there. And there's a place where there's love missing. Not to sound too much like Marianne Williamson, who's like, all of the world.

problems can be solved with love. I don't believe that. Right. Some of the world's problems will be solved with conviction, with passion, and with empathy. So when we give ourselves permission to offend, it is anchoring into your truth, walking in high personal faith and high personal truth. That means doing the things that are unpopular because it is part of your conviction, because you stand for something with such passion and such commitment that you are willing to be seen as unpopular, that you are willing to be judged, you're willing to be rejected. And here's the cool thing. You will have some rejection, but for the people that you are meant to serve for your territory, they're going to love it.

They're going to feel so relieved. They're going to say, oh, my gosh, you're saying exactly what I've been thinking. Thank God you said it. Heather, oh my gosh. Thank God. You said that getting fired was the best thing because I was carrying this shame around being fired. But no, it really has been great. Like whatever the thing is. And this is why I like reading the Bible, even the boring parts. You know why? Because it's a reminder. I was reading, I want to say Joshua. And it's the boring part of the Bible where they're like, and the tribe of Dan was given from here to here was the tribe of Dan's boundary. And from here to here was the tribe of Gideon's boundary. And from here to here was the tribe of Heather's boundary. And it just goes on like that for a full page. You know what it took away from that? We all have our boundary. We all have our land. We all have our territory that has been uniquely assigned and apportioned for us. But we're not stepping into that land because we're too busy looking at everyone else's land.

We're too busy trying to see, well, Heather's territory is so much bigger than mine. Don't you know that if you went into your territory and you built up your community, that the strength of that community would then expand and your territory would increase? But you're not giving yourself permission to offend. You're still here worried that you're going to be judged,

rejected, or talked about. Your new thing should be come at me. I'm ready. right like come at me say it to my things anyway but with love and empathy and compassion i teach you how to do that in the book who did you write the book for first myself um and i think that that's an important lesson too is that we have to be the first partakers of our offerings that's embodiment that's walking in that's walking your talk and then for my daughters because they're not paying attention to me right now. They are not interested in anything I have to say, but I know that there

will be a day, and I hope that this day is many, many, many decades away. There's going to be a day when I won't be here, and they're going to want to know what my philosophies of the world were. And I hope that they'll read it way before while I'm alive and they could ask me questions and take advantage that I'm their mother, the author. But I wanted this for them so that they can have a voice. I thought, and this is, this is the cool thing I think, too, about building communities, is that can you just look at the people who are in your community right now and can you serve them the best? And I thought, man, God gave me these two incredible young ladies. Like, who knows what these girls are going to be? And I have a responsibility to impart this

wisdom in them. So I'm going to write this book for them. Now, if they don't ever read it, Oh, well, there are thousands of other people who have purchased this book who are reading it, whose lives have already been transformed. Can I share one transformation that like moved into tears? Okay, so I got a message to DM on Instagram. I'm at Girl Confident, by the way, if anybody wants to chat with me over there. And this woman says, Rachel, I just need to thank you because I read your book. and especially the chapter on boundaries. She said, I was in an abusive relationship.

I know that because of your book, you saved my life and my children's lives. We set up boundaries. I have boundaries. I have a restraining order. I got my safety plan together, and I got my children and I out of that environment. As I say this to you,

there's a lump in my throat being formed because if no one else ever reads the book, I did it. I did my job. I saved the life. But the reality is that thousands of people have purchased this book. Hopefully, thousands will actually read it. Because the answers are there to your point earlier. Are we willing to do the work to mind for the goal? And by the way, you don't have to mind far in this book because the gems are there like page after page. I was intentional about it. even in my own copy, like I have dog marked, you know, things here and there. So, thank you for letting me share that. And I hope it encourages our listeners to go save someone's

life today, whether you're a personal stylist, a makeup artist, a coach, a speaker, a writer. You don't know the impact that your work will have until you give yourself permission to offend and put it out there. Oh, it's so true and so good. Rachel, tell everyone where they can find you or where they can get the book. Yes. Okay. Well, favorite playground is Instagram at Girl Confident. My website is rachelluna.com and you can get the book on Amazon, on Barnes & Noble. It's available in audiobook, in paperback, in English, in Spanish, Spanish paperback, English hardcover, audiobook in English and Spanish. It's in all the places. If you live near Barnes & Noble, go walk in the store, pick it up from the store, or go to the library. It's there, too. It's in the library. Someone

wrote to me and was like, I found your book in the library and my husband is loving it too. I'm like, your husband is reading it? She said, my husband's reading it and he read it, finished it before me, and our marriage has changed because we're both doing the work. Wow. That isn't inspiring. I don't know what is. Keep saving lives. Keeps changing lives. And thank you for writing this book. It's incredible. I personally loved it and I'm just, I'm so grateful you wrote it. Thank you so much for having me. I love you and thank you for being my friend. Love you too. Guys, keep coming back, keep doing the work. Check out the book. I promise you, go and take a look at the reviews. It's going to be a game changer. Until next week, keep creating your confidence.

Come on this journey with me.