E34 The Hidden Ways Toxic Thinking Keeps You Bound And Why Freedom Matters

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:00)
You are suffering under the weight of something heavy that you were never meant to carry. And for many of us, we have no idea that we are bound up in so many chains. We think it’s normal because it feels so familiar. But the truth is that we settle. We don’t know another way to live. So here’s the truth. Everyone has baggage. We don’t have to keep carrying it. Today, I’m going to share a story about how God healed me from

an issue with my skin when I started to break free of toxic cycles in my life. So let’s have a chat about why I started the podcast and why freedom matters. Stick around.

Hey, welcome. Thanks for joining today’s conversation about why freedom matters. Before we jump into the topic, I just wanted to make sure you were aware this week, the first week of October beginning Monday the 6th,

I am doing a bit of a party online with my Facebook and Instagram. So I hope you’ve had a chance to jump over there and take a look and join in and participate to win some prizes.

So I wanted to quickly share why I’m celebrating this week. I’ve got a couple of things, big news to me I’m really excited about. So I am part of this group called Imagine Media Podcast Network. And my coach, Jenellene Samuel, has taught me a lot about podcasting and how to make my show a little bit better, just sharpen the edges and crisp things up a little bit. And I’m super grateful for her advice and her.

just her coming alongside and helping me understand different things about the podcast world. But what’s even better is that she connected our team with this gentleman named Adam Curry, who is the father of podcasting. did. He was sort of the co-founder years and years ago, at least 20 years ago.

He did various shows. I know he was on MTV for a while and won a bunch of awards. Very, very well known in this type of media industry. But he has been so gracious as to come alongside our network and help us with a couple of things. And it’s been amazing. He met us for one of our meetings and did just a little bit of coaching around monetization and some different things. And it was…

really wonderful to get some interaction and some informal coaching from someone who’s been doing this for decades. And I bring all of that up because Adam Curry is the co-founder of a platform called Godcaster. And what is so amazing about this is that he has now put our network on Godcaster, which is similar to like a radio station. So you can listen to some of our podcast shows live, or you can just go to each individual show.

and listen to whatever episode you want. So I will make sure that I’m sharing all of those links. But what’s amazing about it is that there’s no login required, no account, no subscription. You simply click the button and listen. It is audio only. So for those of you who prefer the video, I think most people are doing my podcast on audio because I only have the videos up on Spotify for now. But that is going to be a great resource for people

there’ll be links for that on my website and on my social media. So if that is something you’re interested in, make sure you go check that out. Along with that is the concept of accepting donations. I want to be listener supported, but I’ve just been really uncomfortable asking people to help support my show. And after this discussion with Adam,

He really explained why it’s so valuable to build community and provide value for value and how listener supported shows tend to have the best community involvement. so I thought that that is actually the direction I feel like I want to go. So I’m super excited to announce that not only is my show now available on Godcaster where you can listen to other faith based podcasts.

It is now, I’ve finally launched my Patreon account and I’m really excited about this because I was able to link my podcast up there as well. And so what’s so great about Patreon is that it makes it easier to build community. And so I’m really looking forward to adding some additional things there, such as maybe a monthly Zoom call. I’m going to try to start in January of 2026 and some different things. So if you are interested, definitely go check that out again. I’ve got some links in the show notes for you.

to my Patreon account and there’s three different tiers of membership. So go check those out. I’ll be sharing a little bit more about that in a couple of days on my Instagram account. So those are the exciting things that have been happening in my world that I couldn’t wait to share with you. It just took me a little while to get it all built and put together. So thank you so, so much for your support.

Now let’s talk about freedom. mean, really that’s the basis of my show. If you’ve been listening to any episodes, you know that’s my heart. Like I just want people to get free of their junk, break free of chains of bondage and baggage. And I’ve talked about a lot of different ways you can do that.

And so today I thought, you know, I had a really great interview on a show called God’s Goodness where they asked me to share my testimony and I really struggled for a little while. it’s hard to pick out, it’s hard to share a testimony because it’s hard to pick out like one or two really amazing things that God has done in my life. You know, you hear people share testimonies of

getting free of trafficking or addiction or tragedy. And my story does not look like that at all. Mine has really been, as I shared in another episode, just a thousand little things that God has slowly began to unchain me from. And so as I was preparing for that interview, which, by the way, will air in the middle of October, and I’ll make sure that I share that so you guys can listen to the whole thing. But I just really thought about ⁓

the things that God has done for me and why freedom matters to me so much. And so I wanted to just share a story. One of the main or one of the, guess I would say the bigger aha moments in my life was when the Lord healed me from adult acne and I had no idea he was doing it. And so what does that mean? How could I not know? Let me share. So I, as a teenager, developed acne as a lot of us do.

The problem was that, you know, as I turned 18 and then went into my twenties, it never really went away. And so I just, you know, wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. I was constantly living with blemishes all over my face and not just my face, but also my back and my chest. And it’s, you know, it’s not something that you can keep hidden with makeup. It does dull it a little bit, but there’s just no way to hide it. You’re always walking around.

was something on your face and it’s really disheartening. And I was trying to think of the right words to explain how I felt. And I don’t know that I can really put it into words, but you carry a lot of shame and you carry a lot of pain because it feels like there’s nothing you can do. It’s out of your control. And ⁓ sometimes you feel like it must be my fault. Like you think things like, it must be something I’m eating or I’m not drinking enough water or…

you know, I haven’t tried the right skincare products or, you know, I even had gone to the doctor. I saw a dermatologist for a couple of years taking different medications to try to see if that would fix the problem. it did help. All those things did help a little bit, but I could never get it to go away. So I really just kind of gave up. was like, this must.

be who I’m supposed to be. This must be my lot in life, whatever. You just, you settle for things when you don’t know how to fix them. ⁓ And that’s really the gist of what I want to get across today is we don’t have to settle for things. There is a way to fix them, if you will. We just have to learn the right way to do it. And it’s a journey that we take with the Lord. And so what that looked like for me was,

because acne was so familiar, so normal to me, and I had just basically accepted this is what Jen’s life is gonna be, I didn’t really focus on, like I got to the point where I just stopped trying to figure out how to overcome it. And so setting that aside and just moving into normal everyday life, I remember.

one day looking in the mirror and I had kind of noticed over the span of probably a couple of months where my skin just seemed to get more and more clear and I and I remember one morning I was looking in the mirror and I was having a conversation with God and I said wow I was kind of marveling over my the skin on my face and thinking I have never seen I have never gone so long without any blemishes and I just remember being really excited about that and

thinking it was an anomaly and not understanding, you know, I kind of reached back in my mind like, what have I been doing differently? I must have done something that finally worked. And as I was talking this out with God, you know, I randomly was just having a conversation with him in the bathroom as I was thinking through all these things. And he said to me very clearly, he said, I healed your skin. And I was like, what? Wait, like I’m thinking about that. was like, number one, I never asked him to heal me at that point in my life. I didn’t have

faith for physical healing and it’s so it’s just wasn’t something that I thought to pray for. But number two, like I had asked him for solutions on things I could try to make it better. And I felt like he hadn’t given me anything that would fix it. And of course, now looking back, I see that’s because he wanted to actually just heal it flat out. He didn’t want me to have to live with it and manage it. But it was just crazy because I

I just didn’t see it coming. Like I didn’t know that that’s what was happening. And so I thought, well, Lord, that’s kind of random. Like, why did you do that? Like what happened? And he said, well, remember how you’ve been doing a study on Psalm 139, which is a really a scripture just about how precious we are to the Lord, how special we are. And ⁓

I’ll just share a few things if you haven’t read it, definitely go spend some time in there because I had been reading it over and over for several months because I really wanted to own the fact that God thinks I’m amazing, which sounds funny to say out loud, especially back then, but God really does think that.

all of his kids are amazing. And so this Bible scripture, this ⁓ entire passage is extremely helpful in sort of getting that deep down in your heart where you truly believe it. And so God explained to me that I had been kind of studying the scripture off and on for almost a year. And he said, the more settled I became in my true identity, the more my skin was able to heal. And it blew my mind because what he showed me was that

The thoughts and beliefs that I had been living under were affecting me physically and showing up on my skin. They were causing blemishes on my skin because of a false identity. And I did not make that connection at all. I had never ever heard of that in my life, that if you live under lies, labels, and limitations, it’s going to manifest in your body somehow. It’s going to cause somehow harm to your body.

some things are bigger than others, so don’t take this too far. I just know for a fact after being in the world of inner healing and freedom and deliverance for many, many years and studying all the things, I just know that there are a lot of things that are going on inside of us emotionally, spiritually, mentally that affect us physically.

So I like knew in the back of my mind that that was a thing, but I never really thought about what that could look like in my own life. And so it was amazing, know, Psalm 139 talks about how God knows us.

thoroughly inside and out because he created us. Nobody knows us to the extent that God knows us. And you know, the fact that he made our personalities, he made our physical bodies, there’s just so many details about who we are that he cares about, that he intentionally put together. The scripture talks about how we are wonderfully made, like all his thoughts about us are precious and his thoughts about us are there’s so many that they outnumber the grains

grains of sand on a beach. think about that. God loves you so much and has so many good thoughts about you that you cannot even count them. That’s really mind blowing. That’s hard to fathom. And that’s why you kind of have to sit in this ⁓ chapter for a while and just really soak it in and let it take meaning in your own life. Like it’s, especially in the beginning when you don’t like yourself very well, it is really hard to fathom that God actually

has so many good thoughts about you that he delights in you and thinks you’re amazing. ⁓ you know, that verse, or I keep saying verse, that chapter talks about how there’s nowhere that we can go to get away from God. He is always with us. We can’t hide even if we were to try. And all of our days, like everything about our lives and ⁓ what happens in our day to day life is written in a book or a scroll, depending on the version that you read.

So he has all of that written down. Like he knows so much about us. He’s very intentional. And so what God had told me is that because I had been studying that scripture and I was really beginning to own and embrace who he says I am, he began to heal my skin. And of course, I also had a little bit of doubt. was like, well,

Is this really gonna last? And it definitely has. It’s been probably eight to 10 years now. And that’s been really, really exciting for me. free of that pain, free of that shame and just how that has given me confidence in myself and helped me.

better understand what he does not who he designed me to become and what his intention was and how he wants to use me

And the thing is, I grew up in church. I thought I knew who I was. I thought I knew my identity in Christ. I was living under a false identity for years, for decades, weighed down, like I said, lies, labels, and limitations, misunderstandings about what my life should look like. And so as I began to break those toxic cycles of thinking in different ways,

it began to affect my body physically. And that was super exciting for me. And I want more of that. I wanted more. Like I kept leaning in. I was like, okay, teach me more about inner healing. Teach me more about mindsets. Like I couldn’t wait to start digging into things and figure out what else was holding me back. Where else was I living in bondage that I couldn’t see at that point? Because we don’t know what we don’t know, right? I’ve talked about that a lot on the show. And so it really is.

journey that you take with the Lord of understanding who he created you to be and then learning to own it and step into that and So that’s really my goal with the podcast is God showed me all sorts of things that were getting in the way of his blessing that were hindering me and holding me back from everything that he had for me and my life and It was keeping me from becoming all that he designed me to be and I’m like I’m done with that now that I’m free of a lot of that stuff and I’m continuing to get free from those things

I feel like I can’t not talk about it. I have to share like these are some of the things that the Lord has done for me and here’s how my life is so much different and so much better. And I just really have this burning in my heart. Like I just want to grab all these women I know. I just want to, you know, grab their shoulders and be like, look, you don’t have to live that way anymore. You don’t have to live that way anymore. You can be free of shame and condemnation. You can be free of self-loathing.

You can be free of poor body image, insecurities, addiction, unhealthy relationship habits, poor boundaries, fear and anxiety, offense, bitterness. Like there’s just so many things that are going on in our lives that create another layer and another layer and another layer that keep a cap on us. And if we could start pulling those things off, unlocking those chains and stepping out.

we’re gonna see our lives change dramatically. And it might take a little work and it might take a little time, that’s fine. Wouldn’t you rather get to that place of freedom by putting in the effort and being uncomfortable a little bit than staying stuck, staying in this place of settledness, living a small safe life like I used to? It’s so much, like once you get free of negative thinking, once you heal from past hurts and wounds, I mean,

you get a taste of it and you don’t want to go back, I guarantee it. So ⁓ that’s what I share on the podcast. That’s what’s on my heart. That’s why I’m doing this and talking about these things.

here’s what God did for me. Here are the things he taught me. And here’s how you can learn from that too. So don’t settle. Don’t just accept that what’s familiar and what feels normal is how your life is gonna be. Not true, not true. Lean in with the Lord. Let him begin to show you things. Join me in my discussions here on the podcast and I will show you some things. And together.

we’re gonna go into the depths of who God is, into the depths of who we are and find some freedom. So thanks for joining me.