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“Anyone on earth can fail to have the power to protect us, or the wisdom to understand us, or the goodness to love us; God never can.” 

- Peter Kreeft

Single girl, stop waiting to find someone who will make everything okay. That is not dreaming of relationship and marriage, that is being a man junkie and fantasizing about intended use of another person to manage your problems and pain.

In my website membership, we talk about how laying your burdens at the feet of another human being is dysfunctional. It is also encouraged in the secular culture and on social media all day every day, where relationship addiction behaviors are celebrated as goals.

I wish to interrupt that.

I teach women, regardless of whether they have religion, to put God first. In my book I called it “The Divine Paradigm.” God comes first, then the relationship, then the two fallible humans within it.

I have noticed, after almost a decade of listening to women, that God is often a “separate” situation. There are experiences of God, a high-frequency day after attendance at church or a trip to a retreat in paradise, and then there is the return to self-will in daily life. Self-will causes a single woman to think she’s in charge of getting the guy, the ideal, the dream, the fantasy - but the retreat or the sermon don’t seem to enter that high-stakes scenario. She has to manage that one - it’s too important. I am encouraging dependence on God in all matters, especially the important ones.

The single girl must invite God into the area that is most vulnerable, the one that she is most unwilling to surrender.

An example is the text. Contacting him. The chase. The “Hi, thanks for the date! How are you? I was thinking we could…”

Contact God. Pray.

Put the phone down, and ask God “Please, help me to let go. Please, protect me from the thoughts that I won’t ever find a relationship unless I pursue him right now. Please, help me to trust that you will put the right one in my life at the right moment.

Detached, constructive actions like dating to marry with high standards can be miraculous and prosperous. Dating sociably and without casual sex or the burdens of substances (alcohol, drugs, fantasy about him) is a swift turn away from the culture and towards order and good. Try it!

Women are profoundly strong on the inside, and our strength is supported supernaturally when we have a relationship with God and put Him first. Feminism has encouraged women to develop a hard shell of masculine bravado, and I have found that forming this exterior hardness erodes interior strength and security.

Being strong inside for a single woman means feeling a sense of confidence while allowing things to happen, detached from how things will go, feeling secure and trusting that all is working out for good. This promotes a softness outside, that easily smiles and appreciates life. A secure woman who can keep a sense of humor and joy is irresistible to a healthy masculine leader.

When You’re Built to Be Married

Plenty of singles simply wish to live as a married person, and are taking necessary steps toward a desired outcome. From their accepted single state, they contemplate the state of being a wife, and the gravity of wholesome, productive, functional marriage. This is what I did, and it is what I suggest you begin to consider, while taking steps to date men who want a family.

Secure single women don’t place expectations upon a guy on dates, they date to humbly practice being a present, aware feminine follower with the capacity to respect a man, by being direct and kind. Dating sociably helps a woman mature into someone who is worth marrying because she is on a stable path. Emotional maturity means being equipped, seeking solutions and trusting God’s will on the adventure of welcoming the love that is meant for you.

If you feel you are meant to be married, and you meet someone and marry him, yes, your life WILL get better! I encourage you to marry someone who can give you a better life than you can give yourself. Marriage is awesome. But it is not awesome because you “get” someone who meets your needs and takes your pain away. It is awesome because it is a sacred soul collaboration. You will shoulder each other’s burdens together, you will help each other uplevel and leap, you will welcome and raise children. It is awesome for surprising and unexpected reasons, because there is so much spiritual growth and wisdom in long-term commitment and family life.

Yes, you must know yourself, but above all, be an unfinished work of art that our Creator is working on. Put God first. The culture will hiss narratives that you must achieve certain things or be at a certain “place” or “level” to partner. That mentality is keeping women isolated. Be yourself, date to marry with high standards, and demonstrate the conduct of a willing, responsible, trustworthy soul.

It might not be pretty at first. Letting go is hard, so go one day at a time. The culture has poisoned women, and turning away from it will be a detox. Doing things differently will feel odd.

Simple choices make a big difference.

For one month,

• Read one Proverb a day, get a journal and a silky pen and hand-write about your feelings and awarenesses. Do this first thing in the morning, instead of checking apps or social media, even if the apps are spiritual or religious.

You must be willing to face your past, your personality, your pain and take responsibility for what you can change while being gentle with yourself on what you cannot change. (You will continue to use these tools as a wife.) Starting now will prepare you to collaborate, negotiate, and flow with complementary masculine and feminine energies in a mature, emotionally intimate setting once you are married, because you’ve taken responsibility for yourself and prepared the way.

You’ll be letting go, and letting God.

End the war with yourself, and fight the culture instead. Take on the battle armed with wisdom and prudence by reclaiming your inherent rights. You have a right to be fulfilled, happy and free, to marry and to become a mother. You have a right to be surrounded with people who love you, who laugh and share openly. You have a right to fulfilling days of hard work on what matters most, like loving your family in your home. Start today by making a good life for yourself one day at a time, because you love yourself and you’re worth it, and you trust God knowing that when you do your best, He does the rest.

Deliberately place your life in God’s hands, not the culture’s shaky, untrustworthy, unreliable gimmicks.

I have been practicing the principles I teach since the mid 2000s. I met my husband in 2012 at age 39, and after years of isolation and obsession with achievement, I became a wife and stepmom. Ever since, my priority has been family - my relationships with my husband and my soul sons. I love working and have been determined to help others, sing, and write songs, but not at the expense of my very own God-granted blessing of family, which comes first. That has not been easy at times. I was once poisoned by the secular culture, with an egoic shield of masculine bravado, taking the stage and losing myself in proving my worth. I began teaching women and podcasting in 2017, and went through seasons of admitting to myself I did not feel I could help women from a place of integrity because of the marital season I was weathering myself.

Now that I am older, our kids are grown and we are settled in an area that better reflects our values, I can work from a place of stability and from my own deepening relationship with Christ. I report back from accomplishments within my own four walls, having been through good times and bad. The difficult times of life in the whitewater of the river have made way for miracles, through hardship managed by practicing what I wrote about in this essay.

Anyone can trust the secular culture and use apps to find a plus one.

What about feeling chosen? What about true, lifelong fulfillment?

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Why?

Because I would enter her office and say

• “I feel like I___”(thought or conclusion)

• “I feel like he____”(assumption or judgement of another)

• “I feel like it used to be____”(subjective invention framed as true circumstance)

“Like is not a feeling,” Pat would respond, a bit bored, looking down at her legal pad, scribbling.

It would stop me in my tracks. I’d hear myself. “I feel like___.” A humble, willing, silence would emerge from within me - the same one I witness in women I teach today, when I ask them to search for the feeling to replace the word “like.”

I feel uncomfortable. I feel scared. 

I feel out of my depth. I feel vulnerable.

I feel joy. I feel angry.

Direct communication requires developing the ability to discover a feeling, the vocabulary to name it, and the self-esteem to share it.

That is why I called my website membership “emotional fitness.” Being direct is a big part of reclaiming womanhood, and women require work on it, like an interior workout.

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This was fifteen years ago, that I was in Dr. Pat’s office saying “I feel like___.” Today, “I feel like” is so common that it has swept direct communication aside for an irrational soup of gender-neutral meandering, and no real solution through clarifying communication.

“I feel like” is the language equivalent of gender insanity in the culture. I hear it from leaders who speak at events, pastors, journalists, experts on TV. “What do you think?” I often say out loud while listening to a podcaster or a speaker in my car, especially if it is a masculine leader persuading me, while simultaneously using neutral, indirect words.

I find myself using the words “I feel like” at times when I am with people who do not like me, or my work. That is not acceptable, and I admit that it is fawning to survive an exchange.

Direct communication can be somewhat intimidating, and it is productive.

Dr. Pat was teaching me to say “I feel _____,” using the word for an actual emotion, (mad, sad, glad…) because she was teaching me direct, complementary, respectful communication from my feminine nature.

She was teaching me to use complementary language with a healthy masculine leader, who would respond by telling me what he thinks.

Take a page from my book. It may feel artificial at first, but it is actually deliberate. It takes effort. (Love is effort.)

Obviously, men may share a feeling, women may share thoughts. Men have feelings and women have thoughts.

I am suggesting focusing on direct communication from a sense of awareness of who you are speaking to, from your “lane,” if you will.

Are you a feminine woman talking to a masculine man? Share your sense or feeling, ask him what he thinks.

Are you a masculine man talking to a feminine woman? Share your thoughts or plans, and ask her how she feels about them.

You may be surprised how effective this is if it seeps out into other interactions, whether man-to-man at work, or in creative places, or even with your snarky male teenagers, and on and on.

Try this. Start being deliberate about how you communicate and the context within which you are expressing yourself.

I feel______(actual emotion)

I think______(actual conclusion).

Indirect blobs of bad communication are contributing to the death of order, manners, and decency.

They are reflected in pajamas in the airport, young men brushing by elderly ladies and letting the door slam on them, strong men slouching while letting a young woman hold the door for them. They are reflected in little children being permitted to cave in on boredom instead of paying attention to a grandparent’s wisdom. They are reflected in zombies and bots staring at their phones while walking, ignoring others who follow along so as not to offend.

Indirect blobs of communication are sad.

My grandfather told me about how people would sing on their way to work when he was a young man. In downtown Chicago, everyone would be bustling along, ready for the day, often greeting each other, and some would be singing a little song to themselves. That is something I wish to see again. People who are seeking to be aware of themselves, while well-mannered and joyful, making the best of the day.

Watch your words. Be deliberate. Bring back the goodness.

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Emotional Fitness Membership

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Book Rec: Carrie Gress

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I have worked with several women who are in relationships with men who popped up months later, because they never forgot the one who didn’t contact and pursue them.

If he likes you, nothing will stop him from contacting you. If he is not contacting you, accept that and move on. Contact God.

Trusting enough to allow him to pursue you creates an imprint that sustains you as a wife many years later, when you have a toddler around your ankle and you feel unattractive, when you have gained a little weight, when he has a young, beautiful new colleague, etc. You’ll feel secure that he is focused on you, and his marriage - the one he pursued with you. In a moment like that,

• ‘He pursued me,’ is a better thing to consider than ‘Would he even be here if I hadn’t pursued him?’

I do not encourage wasting time and fertility by reaching out and texting a guy you went out on a date with - ever. It is not being cool or current, it is buying into common false narratives that provide justification for taking over and controlling it, out of fear of vulnerability.

• “maybe he thinks I wasn’t interested”

• “maybe I didn’t deliberately show him how much I liked him”

• I better “put myself out there” and text him.

I have been hearing these exact phrases to justify contacting a guy for about ten years, and I think they represent bowing to the culture, which covertly makes little selfish men out of potent, mysterious, amazing, feminine women.

Contacting him because you think he may not have noticed your interest is cherishing him. Cherishing is the masculine leader’s job, it is what you will receive. If you, a feminine woman, are leading and texting him, that encroaches on his space. Any expression of masculine energy with a masculine energy man initiates a competition. If he is feminine and passive, contacting him and pursuing him will work. If he is avoidant of intimacy and seeking casual sex, (usually keeps for about for six weeks) it will work. Both are unappealing scenarios to avoid compared to direct, well-paced interest and communication from a masculine man who wants a family.

Women who assertively contact dates are often unconsciously playing games to avoid intimacy, and might be the first to go after burning out the spark from forced connection. I have walked with women down a path of passivity and together we’ve watched and discussed what comes up. Many face black-and-white thinking (extremes, courtesy of woke feminism) that the only two choices are a great-looking, awesome guy who will hurt or reject, or a doughy schlub who will be kind and available. It’s better to watch your thoughts and dismiss false narratives like that, and let your brain take a backseat to your heart.

How do you feel?

If you want to contact and be in control because you are uncomfortable with letting a man pursue you, and when he does, you feel awkward and turned off, it may be an indication of you disliking you. Having good self-esteem and loving yourself as you are means interest from a nice guy will feel good. There will be common ground in your impression of yourself matching his impression of you. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s just accepting the complement of interest and trusting the process. It won’t give you the “ick,” it will be a possibility that is enticing.

A healthy feminine woman allows for the process of being contacted by him, because she appreciates the breathers, the unexpected delight, and the time in between dates to work on trusting God. Lightning bolts of chemistry and “love at first sight” do indeed happen between prudent souls, however they are primarily a goal of relationship addicts and emotionally immature, unhealed souls. Chemistry can be discovered and stoked throughout well-paced direct communication, her patience, and his cherishing fun.

Let Him Lead

A healthy, good-hearted masculine leader wants to lead, he wants your respect, he wants to initiate contact, and he wants to cherish you. Leading and cherishing him by pursuing him is essentially swerving into his lane. He will move on to avoid the collision. A woman who truly respects a man and has self-esteem is capable of respecting his disinterest in her without hunting him down and seeking interest that isn’t there.

Most women reach out and text from the culture’s pervasive feminist message that making the first move is “empowering” and “evolved,” and that it’s “progress.” But human beings with complementary biology and corresponding energies do not surpass what is natural - they are engaging timeless energetic forces of nature! Saying it is different now because of the year we are in is comical, it’s like saying ocean waves crash differently now because it’s 2026.

While I was dating my husband, he enjoyed how much space I gave him. He later told me that he liked how present I was when we were together, and how engrossed I was in my own life. I let him lead without encroaching on his territory.

If you don’t hear from a date, practice letting go.

Fill your life with recreation and hobbies, accept dates from other guys. When you aren’t weighed down by casual sex and substances, dates are a sociable, simple process.

Try out the unstoppable self-esteem of remaining unbothered if he does not contact you. He might still, who are you to know? Only God knows. Maybe he had an unexpected trip. Maybe someone passed away and he had to go to a funeral. Maybe he met someone easy and has to learn a lesson to become worthy of you. Plan pickle ball with friends. Do a liver cleanse. Get a pedi. Trust in our Lord’s abundant universe.

Masculine men do not forget the ones who let them lead.

Let it go. Be too enriched by and engrossed in your own life to care. Avoid too many DMs back and forth on apps, where you may be tempted to explain how you like to let him lead. This is not to be explained - confident femininity is demonstrated.

Be still, girl. Be unbothered. Be Good Air. Be.

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The subtitle of Gress’ book is Why Feminism Can’t Be Fused With Christianity and the presentation of her case against the dark side of feminism is bulletproof. I will be recommending this book to captured souls from now on, and will link it in the resources section within my membership.

There is one specific thing I want to write about, in the same way Flannery O’Connor said…

“I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.” 

Please allow me to riff a bit on…

Autonomy.

Gress devoted an entire chapter to autonomy in a section called The Shadow Church, treating feminism as a new orthodoxy which replaced Christianity, a blend of political worship of the Marxist/Socialist State, alongside New Age occult practices.

I wish to address her treatment of autonomy as an idol that feminists worship, which she called ‘radical autonomy.’

My question: is there such a thing as non-radical autonomy, for good?

Christians accept that we are not God, that God became man, was crucified, died, and rose again for us. Gress reminds, “if one refuses to worship the God who became man, man will inevitably become his own god.” This is the aim of Satanism, which is not worship of the devil, but rather the worship of the self. The devil oversees a state of self-reliance that makes way for whimsical, accepted exploration without objective moral truth. Subjective evaluation of morals exist on a sort of continuum, and depend upon experience and context.

This is not foreign anymore - it has become completely acceptable today, and the proliferation of it is in plain sight. For instance, I once had a consult with a very successful woman who described a catastrophic divorce as a result of her infidelity, and maintained a sense of resolve in evaluating her behavior, the catalyst of the catastrophe, as moral. Despite taking responsibility for pain inflicted upon her family, she evaluated her affair with the much-younger man who babysat her three children as “self-care.” This was because her husband was not affectionate and worked very long hours, and she suspected, but never confirmed, his infidelity. Therefore, she felt it was her justified, moral duty to please herself. She stood firm on this conclusion, and wanted to begin working with me on the condition that I would agree with her. This is the occult’s disordered nature in plain view and when shared, feminists may nod in agreement or at least curiously, warmly ponder her choice for social credit, fluffed up by a “non-judgemental” and “positive” outlook.

In sessions, I have heard women say “that’s so negative” when I share basic morals and ethics in the face of their justifications. The dark side of feminism is upside down, and therefore “non-judgemental” and “positive” speech is often actually immoral acceptance of radical harm. Another example of being “negative” in this context is firmly denouncing the surgical removal of healthy breast tissue in a young woman who thinks (or has been convinced) that she is a man.

The “negative” take I shared about this woman’s destructive affair, (which is why we did not get past her free consult) was that it was not moral if you believe in God, or even if you are a decent and ethical non-believer who knows right from wrong. Healing would have required admitting error and deliberately seeking repentance, not justification. My conclusion was that I did not have the clinical or clerical credentials to help her.

The point is, darkness in the form of radical autonomy and self-reliance can hide inside the practice of a personal doctrine that renders the self a little god who sets (and changes) the doctrine. As Gress clarified, radical autonomy is the idol. Worship of the idol was promoted as a dream of independence which has led to an isolating nightmare for women.

I greet women who are often in enough pain (a gift in the form of desperation) to consider a Higher Power who is outside of themselves. Sometimes in sessions with women who fight surrender, I ask if they can agree that they are not managing a 7am-3pm shift relieving another fallible human, to crank a mechanism that keeps the ocean waves crashing. I ask if we can agree that those tides will ebb and flow by our Creator, without someone supervising them.

I also use humor, in hope of surrender. The joke…

“even an Atheist prays when he clogs the toilet at the CEO’s home during a dinner party” 

…sometimes helps. This is because I will do anything to get a woman to consider that God is someone outside of her, and therefore not her. I remain patient about evangelizing and avoid getting too granular too soon on the history of salvation. I prioritize the practical pursuits that a God-centered spiritual perspective can provide, to kickstart a detox from the dark side of feminism.

And so, here is the “but” on use of the word autonomy.

I wrote a section in my book entitled Autonomy. The reason I did that, is because I find that women who are trapped and mired in Culture Capture sometimes show signs of relationship addiction. I call it being a man junkie, because it involves the use of a man as if he is a substance.

Robin Norwood wrote in her groundbreaking book Women who Love Too Much,

“Every woman in this culture is actively encouraged by magazines and other media to behave in most of the ways that are typical of a very sick relationship addict.” 

That was published in 1997, friends. It is far, far worse today.

The culture is so insidiously destructive to women, and has so successfully dismantled the inner wisdom of God-centered femininity, that often, the more workplace-empowered and assertive women are, the weaker they are in the presence of a man outside of work. The caving in to the self that ushers in participation in hookup culture, or even just delusional longing instead of constructive dating as it was for me, can transform the most powerful girl boss into an emotionally disabled adolescent inside.

I also used the word “autonomy” in my book because I remember how captured I was, and how allergic I had become to common sense and trust in God. I kept that in mind the entire time I wrote my handbook, out of a sense of determination to help women. Even though I was willingly getting help from a Catholic counselor while I was single, who was breathing life back into the values of my upbringing, I was still in so much resistance that I was attracted to words and treatment of subjects that seemed “friendly” to my woke world. The chapter in Something Wicked that calls out redeeming views of feminism within Christian circles named Rachel Hollis, Jen Hatmaker, Brene Brown, and others. These were all people I once followed - until 2020.

I humbly admit my own “detox” process continues today. I have been working with women since 2017, through podcasting and sessions, and I witness past work as a slow burning-off of resistance and disclaimers. I am still releasing my own forms of Culture Capture.

I was still somewhat captured when I got married. It is only within the last several years of examining my life from the sacramental perspective that my stand against the culture has become sturdier. More recently, re-evaluating guidance from priests who may occupy a seat in what Gress calls “The Permissive Society” has schooled me.

Examination that goes this deep causes me to teach while including my lost chances of motherhood along with my found one, of marriage. The wound of having dreams of motherhood my entire life, and experiencing only a form of it as a stepmom, is one of my most important tools in attempting to help women to stop wasting time and fertility while bowing to a culture that is destroying them.

And so, I have permitted the word autonomy in an attempt to help women reclaim order in their lives from the disorder in the culture. They are often living out unmanageable, distorted days without properly focusing on themselves and constructively focusing on others. Single women either outsource home responsibilities with abundant resources, or completely abandon them for chaos and messy homes, sometimes claiming the right to leave a mess as empowerment. Either way, it is a disowning, of care for the ordinary and the beautiful, fueled by the secular culture’s pervasive messaging and masculine bravado.

I have suggested to some powerful and prosperous working women that they cut back on conveniences and help in the home, and start doing dishes and laundry themselves, as an exercise in feeling grounded and practicing what I describe as a healthy sense of autonomy. The kind that includes surrender to God’s will, and is boosted by a brisk walk while the laundry dries instead of caving to frantically texting a man who isn’t calling.

A sense of power over what you can control, while letting go of the rest, is a viable path to examining the immature, eternal girl inside who might be steering the car without being able to see over the dashboard. We have no idea how many well-dressed female professionals have surrendered to feminism and simultaneously placed the immature, wounded, eternal inner girl in charge of their personal lives.

However, I am now in doubt of the use of a word that has done damage, to describe reclamation of good, and am hesitant to lean back on ‘quibbling over semantics’ because relying on that can cause damage, too.

Words hold power, and typically, when I come across a word that is signaling harm I treat it as a profanity and avoid it. Maybe I was just trying to get feminists to do dishes, but is it worth the risk?

I wrote the entry on autonomy in my book in 2023. That was a long time ago in the context of Christ molding me. I based it on the second Oxford definition of the word autonomy, “freedom of action.” I called it a practical component of a spiritual pursuit. However, is use of the word autonomy here an oxymoron? Is including trust in God’s will within my description of a word typically used to signal self-reliance simply ineffectual?

Women today, especially Christians, are super-busy reframing words and texts rooted in narratives for self-reliance to prove feminism as worthy of inclusion in the Christian perspective. Am I joining them in using the word autonomy? If so, I don’t want to.

Please allow a brief message from our sponsor, my internal dialogue with God:

I sense I am about to get even more canceled for being an anti-feminism, which will be new and different from being canceled for being a people-pleasing deluded leftist who was concealing conservative values for social credit, and refused the shot out loud, mostly so pregnant women and fertile women wouldn’t get it. Anyway…It’s official. Today is the day of ending my disclaimers about feminism being great for the workplace and bad for the personal life.

I’m sure now - it’s just bad, all around.

We wanted a promotion, and we got a young mother like “Hormone Hangover” here on Substack, who didn’t breastfeed because she had a double mastectomy of healthy tissue while she thought she was a man. Yes, the workplace remains a wonderful and prosperous place for women who don’t need feminism, I am reporting from it, and I send you to the chapter on work in Something Wicked to manage it.

Before I close this contemplation and seek your feedback, the now-questionable entry on autonomy in my book reads,

“Maintaining autonomy means a commitment to managing your priorities and focusing on what you can change. Starting right here, right now, with what you already have, boyfriend or not, is the task. Remember, self-will works in a fallen world, and it will be sold to you everywhere you look. But you have choices! If you trust that God is in charge and accept there is a supernatural order to your path, autonomy is a practical component of a spiritual pursuit. Rather than forcing your stubborn, autonomous self-will everywhere, you constructively exert your will and personal power where it belongs, trusting God to do the rest. Managing your list is a game-changer. Here’s a simple start.

· Is your sink empty of dirty dishes on a daily basis?

· Is your car clean, and do you have a full tank of gas in it? Is your wallet organized, bills paid early or on time?

· Are you exercising regularly?

· Are you in touch with pals and mentors?

· Are you seeking support? Church, concerts, temple, inspiring lectures, recovery meetings or whichever you choose - are available, like the good men in your area.

· Is your kitchen, bathroom, closet and bedroom tidy?

· Is your front step inviting, clear of obstacles and decorated in a cheerful way?

· Is your hygiene, including health and dental care, acupuncture, pedicures, etc. recurring at an ideal pace?

· Are you setting goals and fulfilling a vision at work, or volunteering from a surplus of life energy?

· Are you caught up on you?”

I am also suspicious of placing trust in God and attendance in Church in a list of ordinary pursuits and relationships, which is what the early framers of feminism did with Christianity in order to demote it and sell the “new orthodoxy” to women. Did I use a pinch of the illness to inoculate, or did I revert to my feminist conditioning?

And so, dear reader, I am perplexed. I could make a decision and upload a rewrite today, which is the perk of being a nobody with a self-published memoir/handbook I wrote to provide a guide on my Group Zooms.

But before I do that, I want to take advantage of the experimental nature of Substack, which has truly transformed my experience as a writer. Let’s discuss the use of the word autonomy. Can it include God?

Your thoughts?

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“A dialect is a behavior.”

I understood it completely. I was a born mimic, and had cut my teeth at Second City prior to meeting Susan. I understood that every time I had used an accent in performance, it was alive throughout my entire body. It was affecting me and informing me, adopted temporarily into my system.

Susan would pass away one year after I took class with her, and by that time I had lost interest in method acting. I decided to pursue music, and moved to Nashville. It is now that I look back and realize how privileged I was, to learn about life through various artistic pursuits. I know exposure to participants in the golden age of Hollywood is also exposure to mind controlled servants of decline by design, but I like to glean the good.

Watch Your Thoughts, They Become Your Words

When I met Dr. Pat Allen, and began to work with her to reclaim my dream of marriage, she repeated a quote attributed to Lao Tzu, who wrote the texts for Taoism.

It goes like this, “Watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Watch your words, for they become your behavior. Watch your behavior, for it becomes your habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. Watch your character, for character is destiny.”

Susan returned to me in my memory while I was digesting Pat’s work.

“A dialect is a behavior.”

I understood that even if you’re not an actor on a stage, your words are affecting you as you live and move and breathe through life. The words you read, the words you choose to use, they are all defining your outlook, and your outlook is affecting your behavior. This was around the time I began deliberately reading Scripture again. Aloud, in the early morning by candlelight, in awe of how it seemed to restore me.

My father, a Bible reader who despised what he called “profanity,” was impeccable with his words. He would say

“Holy mackarel!”

“Son of a gun!”

“Dirty name!”

But never an actual swear. When I swerved into the world of woke and took on swearing to rebel and shock, he let me know how disgusted it made him. This example from my dad became fascinating to me. While I was rehabilitating and recovering my words with Dr. Pat, my dad was still with us. I would broadly discuss learning new things about language from an eighty year old Catholic counselor and author who was passionate about her pursuits. He was delighted.

Many years later I would continue to consider how hefty his profanity-free presence was - his consciousness of his words caused him to age well. At the party after his funeral, I sensed the significant shift that had taken place, being in my parents’ apartment without him. It came to me in a sharp stab of grief, as everyone let loose - it was the first time our kids had seen anyone intoxicated - I had to admit we were all better behaved even if he was just in the other room.

His intelligence, wit, and impeccable use of words was simply a higher frequency.

And so, today, when I am teaching women to be conscious of the feminine energy inherently connected to their biology, and teaching them to become conscious of their emotions and communicate directly without shame or fear, these two examples are alive in me, among others.

I help women to see that it is just as easy to say,

• “there are so many great guys in my town, I will meet a good-hearted masculine man at the moment I am meant to meet him”

as it is to repeat a negative lie like

• “all guys are rotten, there’s no hope”

Why would you choose a lie that makes you droop when you can choose words that create harmony within, that might cause you to be early and stop by a crowded coffee place full of great single guys?

Conscious, Harmonious Self-Talk Leads to Conscious, Harmonious Communication with a Good-Hearted Man

When you practice self-talk that breeds confidence, it will help you communicate with others, especially in the high-stakes delicate area of romantic love.

If you are too assertive on dates and repeat “I want, I think” to a healthy masculine leader, he will either consciously or unconsciously sense a “man - to - man” interaction and be turned off. He may know why, he may not - but he might not ask you out again.

When you say “I feel, I sense” and probe curiously and respectfully to discover what he thinks about that, or what he wants, he will experience an aroma of harmony. It will be inviting. Maybe even irresistible. Masculine energy men discover how they feel about you later, as a secondary experience to thinking (dominant) in the moment with you. That is why I encourage women to let him lead and let him pursue you. If you contact him after a date, you may disrupt his process of noticing (in your absence) how he feels about you. Contacting him and leading might cause him to clock the contact as bothering him, and the door will close. Meanwhile, he might pursue you because you did not contact him, which is clocked as space and respect - the very things he is looking for.

Before you dismiss these principles, try them.

I have made these principles a habit of communication for almost twenty years. While I was dating my husband, he regularly told me how much he cherished my ability to communicate and be direct with him without encroaching on his territory and triggering him to desperately, insensitively take back his space on his motorcycle or checking out with friends. I’d tell Dr. Pat about it and she’d say “well isn’t that wonderful” with a tone of “DUH, Amy.” She’d say something like “when you go to England, and you drive on the left side of the road because that is the established way, are you surprised when no one crashes into you?”

I have been married for over a decade now, and that has meant paddling through marital whitewater at times. This language has been the lifejacket that kept me afloat. “I sense you’re angry, am I right? What do you think about taking a beat and discussing this when we are both cooled off and clear?” It affords spouses the dignity and the space to go to their Higher Power and heal before doing damage. It provides a way to live in solution.

It is simple, but not easy (nothing good is).

Thoughts become language, and language is behavior. Harmony is entirely up to you. Pray to God for the internal stamina and strength to sustain good choices, and try it.

Use your words wisely. Take a page from my book, literally:

I am accustomed to the responses from women when I teach these principles.

The first place they go is “so I don’t get to express wants?” They imagine a life of becoming a carpet to be walked on, acquiescing, not having a self or a voice.

NOPE! Far from it.

Practicing these principles is complex, nuanced, takes time to grasp. That is why I maintain an ongoing membership for teaching women one day at a time.

I expanded my definition of use of these principles to “Emotional Fitness” and we get together weekly to discuss them, and practice them.

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An absence of respect for roles and marriage has built invisible walls around baffled, isolated singles.

Young women are told to find themselves, know themselves, and never compromise on a heroic (masculine) journey. They are told that marriage is an antiquated institution serving only men, and is “oppressive.” If you marry, the “option” to divorce is seen as a possible future life stage. Isolated singles are blowing off the steam from natural young urges that belong within commitment by using hookup apps that seem like an Amazon order of a person. They drift from virtues, secretly use porn. They hide the energetic essence aligned with their biology in gender neutral outfits. Listening to women has caused me to wonder if the Ob/Gyn has become the priest, forgiving casual sex as long as the patient stays up to date on exams and leaves with contraceptive pharma samples. Of course, this lazy blob of new, emerging attitudes is all dressed up as “progress.”

Dubious attitudes toward familial roles and their corresponding life stages have diluted social structure for singles. This is on display through language, which inspires behavior. Embraced as trendy and humorous, these days Mom is “bruh.” The single girl’s male co-worker is her “work husband,” a gorgeous, young, fertile woman is looking for her “person,” because this diluted term is more politically correct than “husband.” The use of “person” also points to socially acceptable subtraction of God, in that one must marry someone who will be all things to her (good luck with that) or someone who might be the same gender (evidence of gender/trans indoctrination).

This language dissolves roles and life stages. It can lead to “helicopter” parents hovering over their kids long into young adulthood. Teens losing interest in getting their driver’s licenses to go places, testing their freedom and learning new things is somehow normal now. Woke culture (intersecting with the medical cartel) will insist an eight year old knows himself enough to change his gender, while an unemployed twenty-eight year old without a driver’s license playing video games in his parents’ home is in an acceptable life process - he might just need meds.

I may sound humorless, but I have cried myself about losses in crucial life stages, and I have listened to singles cry over those losses, feeling adrift from roles and boundaries.

I am a champion for a single’s right to love, commitment, and family from my own second chance at a fulfilling family life.

The late Scott Adams once said that when he lectured his stepson he’d say something like, “It’s not just me here talking to you, bud, invisibly present is you in 20 years, the 40-year-old you, who would resentfully ask me why I never revealed this, if I don’t right now.”

Brilliant!

That’s how I feel when I help women face the truth about their fertility, their habits, and their God-given rights to health, wellness, and a fulfilling marriage and family. When I do a session with a woman who wants kids, I take Adams’ advice and listen with an invisible wisp of them at 48, monitoring me.

I help women create and prioritize an empty space in their lives on purpose, so that it is there to be filled by a good-hearted man. When a single can’t see the that she may be prioritizing the pervasive messages of the culture for social credit, I show her. If dysfunctional attitudes cause her to prioritize the emotional needs of someone in her family, and she is ignoring her own life stage, or ignoring roles - at her own expense - a few shifts can open the path to love. If a form of a “breakup” is needed within a family of origin dynamic, it can be life-changing. A common issue is a factor in these scenarios, and it is something that therapists call emotional incest.

Emotionally Incestuous Motives

Incest on an emotional or energetic level sounds more alarming than it is, and perhaps as a result, it does not get necessary airtime. Symptoms that are similar to physical incest survivors can manifest: isolation, avoidance, secrecy, promiscuity or fear of intimacy. If one cannot in good conscience allege a past event of sexual abuse, it may be that they are suffering emotionally or energetically incestuous behavior within their family of origin.

Emotional incest can show up in the form of triangulation, gossip, bad boundaries, poorly established roles, dismissal of crucial life junctures, and inappropriately timed closeness during seasons of necessary individuation. Questionable jokes, revealing the private in public, and “pre-approved,” repeated topics over natural conversation also point to established norms that trap single adults on a merry-go-round in familiarity with parents, siblings, and relatives, instead of leaping into new relationship and healthy intimacy with a potential spouse.

A healthy observer to an emotionally incested young adult in the form of a new boyfriend or girlfriend will sense the dynamic. The squishy, too-cute, saccharine exchanges, or emotionally charged bickering, are inappropriate between a problem parent and an adult kid, and awkward to witness. An unhealthy observer will join the dynamic, by seeking the approval of the most powerful person in it, the dysfunctional parent. If you’re a single guy or gal suffering from dynamics like this, and you got dumped or ghosted right after bringing someone home, examining your family “stuff” may help more than making the person you were dating the villain.

Young adults affected by emotional incest can suffer guilt without actual error, shame, an inability to stand up for the self, and confusing fear about the normal, natural desire for a relationship that leads to marriage.

Emotional incest can be unconsciously accomplished by well-meaning loved ones, and also manipulatively crafted by disordered personalities.

Often obvious to everyone but the one suffering, swift pivots to extinguish emotional incest return the burden to the problem parent to resolve — as it should be. Often associated with chemical dependency, co-dependency or tragedy, emotional incest can emerge from a problem parent’s avoidance of their own trauma. Unhealed trauma in a problem parent can develop into a personality disorder, where maladjusted patterns are developed to mask deeper issues.

However, not all situations have a disordered, problem parent. These dynamics can appear after a stable childhood with decent parents. Over-exposure to the woke, secular culture causes decent people to drift from functional attitudes and social structures. Tradition gets traded in for new (and sometimes toxic) tendencies. Modern attitudes unconsciously accomplish mayhem by well-meaning people, and can do real harm through reversed roles and blurred boundaries in a family.

Cognitive Shifts Provide the Way to Solution

Cognitive behavioral prompts and pivots are effective because they serve as a gauge on the severity of a situation. A cognitive prompt given it’s full due can eradicate an issue. If not, it can reveal a significant need for specialized psychological therapy or clerical spiritual help.

There are two basics things I avoid in my membership’s Group Zooms, when it comes to deeper issues.

• I do not ever suggest a member commit to or breakup with a particular person, because I once suggested a woman break up with a man over compatibility - she wanted kids and he had had a vasectomy. Today, she is a happily married mother of two children she conceived naturally with him. God is in charge. My job is to suggest standards of self-care, and trust that God will reveal who belongs in the person’s life.

• I do not ever, under any circumstance, suggest an adult child end contact with family members. Necessary adjustments and strong boundaries for personal growth do not require alienation, which is not a solution. If there seem to be issues that require more than my support, I suggest they seek a licensed therapist or other forms of intervention.

This allows me to fill a gap between isolated singles and accredited clinical help. I created a gentle membership, paced in God’s time, for better options, and a space for contemplating possible blocks to love. Dysfunctional, ineffectual attitudes from family members can appear as lighthearted and joyful, but the isolation in baffled young people who are in emotional pain is serious and sad. I have seen it firsthand.

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Clay’s Journey to Healthy Marriage

Clay2 was young man in his early twenties in 2018, during my first podcast, Something Better. I had done a solo episode3 on blocks to emotional intimacy caused by emotional incest. A listener sent that episode to her younger brother, Clay, and he called me for a session.

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1. They prioritize looks.

   This is immature and sad. Grow your spiritual life. When I was at The Second City Training Center in the 90s, the legendary artistic director Martin de Maat used to say, “let’s get deeper than an ashtray, people.” Find someone you can talk to, who makes you laugh. Live a life knowing that things break and looks age but a spiritual soul connection and cracking up together is ageless, and remains preserved.

2. They initiate contact.

   Let go. Let him lead. If you are assertive (or aggressive) you may be inviting risk and downright mayhem into your one precious life. Have the dignity, internal stamina, and sanity to receive what comes your way, don’t force, fix, take and get. Allow. Be good air.

3. They permit a first date at home

   Going to the home of someone you do not know or inviting someone to yours is not a date. For dates, go to a coffee house or crowded mall or restaurant, during the day, and have an iced tea or a pellegrino. Book it in the app. Do not give a stranger your number or address.

   I help women to be equipped - to be in the world and not of it, to be prayed up and smart, not trapped in avoidance.

   I was once on a coffee date in broad daylight listening to a man tell me about himself thinking, ‘I’m pretty sure this man is an addict, love bombing me.’ It was noon. I was observing him like a science experiment. We were outside on the patio of a crowded coffee house and I left all the bait on the table. He didn’t have my number. I thanked him for the tea and moved along.

   If your standards are high, maladjusted people will not bother, because they won’t see a way in - to manipulate you and close their dark deal. Move on, girl. Even if you’re a prodigal with a past, know your worth in the eyes of God.

4. They have casual sex immediately.

If you haven’t figured out yet that avoiding casual sex is your absolute superpower as a feminine follower, you are seriously missing out on the good life. I am growing tired of going into how dangerous and stupid casual sex is, so I will just urge you to read Winifred Cutler’s brilliant book, Love Cycles: The Science of Intimacy in the hopes it will convert you to deep self-care and preservation of your tissues instead of a box of tissues for sobbing because you had casual sex.

5. They let a man to move in within weeks, or move in with him within weeks.

You need four whole seasons to watch his feet. Women in my membership and in my private guidance teaching practice are meeting great guys and allowing for real relationship to emerge. One just got engaged to a man who wants to have a family. One is increasingly serious about a boyfriend. They knew to wait and see, because that is the way to soul collaboration and emotional intimacy.

This is your life! Get serious about your value and your values. Do not avoid dating because of the foolish habits of women who invite red flags and drama. You get to make choices that support you and lead to real love. Here are some ways to get started slowly, to begin digesting the principles I teach.

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Do you want to be married?

• Hang out with engaged and married people. You may go to more weddings, and you’ll be surrounded by signals of your most heartfelt dream.

Do you want a consistent, robust work life that is balanced with family and friends?

• Call up that prospering female friend or acquaintence you know who seems to have nailed the work-life balance, and ask her if she wants to go for a brisk walk for an hour. On the walk, ask her about her daily habits, and listen to her.

Do you want to boost your recreation and hobbies?

• Seek time with a person you know who is always doing things that are FUN. I recently did this myself, pursuing more time in my friendship with a fellow alum who is spectacular at getting people together and playing pickle ball or going to a museum. Soon, we are going with our husbands to hear a big band.

Do you want a deeper spiritual life?

• Make a list of all the people you know who are truly rooted in active practice of trusting God and do not worry because they rely on Him (it might be a short list). Write that person a handwritten letter, and ask if they will share experience as a pen pal.

If you’ve been reading my work for awhile, you know that I teach that God is in charge, and my mission is to help you surrender to Him.

And…

surrender is not without self-assertion within the paradigm of God’s grace!

What do I mean by that?

Pray, let go, stop texting him, stop whining, stop caving in to negative thoughts

AND…

make changes deliberately and actively where you can.

Reach out to a married friend. Share that you are working on new choices and want to spend more time around people who have what you want.

I am married because it was meant to be, because God put the right man in my life at the right time.

And…

I am also married because in 2009, I identified that a certification in Yoga Tune-up, a physical therapy-based format, was the best option for me in the looney-tunes, immoral, unethical yoga world of Los Angeles.

I sought that format because the founder, Jill Miller, was married, and almost all of her certified teachers were married. They hung out together, had potlucks, encouraged each other to maintain high standards while dating to marry in a big city full of insane behavior. I wanted what they had.

By 2010, I was gainfully employed at Equinox teaching that format and training teachers in it. I told all of the participants in my fitness classes that I was single, and that I wanted to be married and have kids.

I knew what I did not want (a feminine energy behavior) which was a set up with a lone wolf, partier, or drifter. I declared that I love kids, had worked as a nanny for many years, and was open to dating a parent.

As a result, I got invited to barbeques and christenings and breezed by parks to visit with families who kept me company on otherwise lonely Sundays.

By 2012, one of my Yoga Tune Up students, who had never forgotten my intention of dating to marry, set me up on a blind date with a good-hearted dad of two little boys.

Years later, in 2017, I would interview Yoga Tune Up creator Jill Miller about finding love! 1

Make changes where you can, where it is appropriate. This will help you feel better, by cherishing yourself on your way to seeking to be cherished by a good-hearted masculine leader.

As we pray we move our feet.

Find some pals who have what you want!

You may find some in the chat…

or on our Group Zooms!

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You have a right to explore what feels best for you.

I am a wife and a parent, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a sister, a sister-in-law, a friend, a neighbor, and a daughter of God. But there was a time that I was only a daughter of humans in a confining spiritual life, and I had to challenge that before I could get married.

I was an eternal girl, on into her thirties (I went into depth about what that looked like in my memoir/handbook). Facing and accepting that, and surrendering completely to God, and not to other human beings or narratives, liberated me completely. I surrendered the false liberation of an empowered feminist, and became a human woman, capable of inhabiting roles that better suited me.

As soon as I stepped into my identity in God, who was infallible, and loved me, I felt better. I felt free. The motivation was wanting to get married. It was a natural pull to what is real. I was praying for emotional intimacy, honesty, and a true soul collaboration with a good-hearted masculine leader. The motivation was by divine design. God can use anything, and in this case, He used a heartfelt desire to get married to spark my willingness to know Him.

False Identities Are Formed By Projecting Brokenness Onto a Perfect God

I had to examine and discard the rotation of false identities I had allowed within the context of my family of origin, as an eternal daughter-girl. The jester, the flake, the counselor, the target, the villain, the prodigal, the old maid, the rebel, the reject, and the fool - these were all archetypes I had assumed at various different times in my life, if even for a fleeting moment - to fawn, to survive, to feel accepted.

One cause of my own false identities was when my late father refused to speak to me for an entire year, at a crucial juncture in early adulthood.

Today, I understand, accept, and forgive his decision.

I was in an ineffectual relationship with a man who was not a leader, who used addiction and coping mechanisms to live. I led the whole thing, and moved in with him as a reaction to past pain in childhood and adolescence. I needed healing, but my solutions were worse than my problems, and attracted my father’s rejection. I was crushed from the loss of my father, and projected the maladjusted tendencies of my fallible father onto God. It secured a painful period of drifting from God’s love, tradition, and my most heartfelt dreams.

I know what it is like to not be allowed to join relatives in your childhood home on Christmas. I know what it is like to get a phone call in secret from other family members avoiding involvement. It would take a lot of living and suffering before I would find the healing I needed. Today, I can understand all of it, and accept it as God’s design, with forgiveness. The culture even granted me another round of rejection during the madness regarding the Covid shot, and God completed the healing.

False Identities Fade by Grace, or Prevail by Human Will

During the decades of drifting to and from God while working as an actor, dancer, singer/songwriter, and fitness instructor, deep down I identified as a wife and a mother. That’s an odd feeling when you’re letting yourself into an empty apartment, but I was keeping my heartfelt identities alive in prayer and in my journal.

In real life, I had been burying those identities for so long, seeking the culture’s acceptance, attention and approval through achievement, that it would take a violent crime to recover them. It would take a demonstration that was an equivalent to my hardened, false-empowerment bravado to shatter my life’s paradigm.

While walking into my home in Nashville one night, I was jumped by two young men. One pushed a pistol into my throat. I instinctively crouched into a ball, throwing my things away from my body. The one without the gun went for my things, and as he walked back toward me with my stuff, I looked up into his eyes. The only way I can explain it is that I pressed my eyes out into the night and showed him my soul. I pleaded for my life in one tiny glance, and then looked down again. I heard him say “let’s go” to the one with the pistol, and they took off in my car. When I told this to the chief of police later that night in my living room, he said, “That moment may have saved your life. They were going for colors. Killing a white lady gets a gang member his colors.”

They had taken my keys, and once my locks were changed that night, I lit candles for those boys. I prayed aloud, “Lord, did anyone ever make either of those kids breakfast before school?” I don’t know why, but that was all I could think about. I asked God to protect me, and heal me.

At that time, a much-respected (by both criminals and ordinary citizens) devout Christian and former gang member worked in my neighborhood. He was a grandfatherly type whom I saw almost every day on walks. He spoke with a severe stutter, and our regular neighborhood exchanges were refined by my capacity for warm patience while he struggled to form words. During these exchanges, I was acutely aware that my patience with his speech impediment was a trait transmitted to me by my thoroughly decent father. Within a week of my ordeal, this man knocked on my door to let me know that he had handled the matter and no gang member would come near me again. He was crying. I was too. This exchange caused me to feel a sense of protection that eclipsed the lukewarm police force’s investigation.

One year later, I was in a secular therapeutic retreat center for a week. During a creative exercise in recovering one’s identity by narrowing down three core dreams, I wrote

1. To be a wife

2. To be a mom

3. To live by the ocean

This was a retreat focused on psychological and emotional health. Two years later, after moving back to Los Angeles, I would meet a Catholic counselor who would help me to evaluate that experience as only a portion of the solution.

“For 100 years, western culture has wrongly regarded soul disease as a psychological disorder.

Behind all soul disease lies a determination to avoid worship (requiring the humility of brokenness and the central value of forgiveness) and service (requiring that our passion for God’s glory be stronger than all passions) in search of personal wholeness.”

- Dr. Larry Crabb and Dwight Edwards, The Power of Connecting

About four years after that retreat, having moved through a process of true repentance and recovery, I had to stand firm in person with a relative. I was accustomed to sharing hard truths with God and fellows on the path to healing, but I had to speak the truth directly to seek freedom from a pattern with someone. Sometimes new choices and behaviors can get trapped in therapeutic environments or remain with fellows specific to those environments. I felt that I needed to transfer the new behaviors to “real life” and take a stand in an important relationship.

I met my husband four weeks later.

But by the grace of God go I.

The entire timeline of escape as an eternal girl in self-will to becoming a surrendered daughter of God was about fifteen years. Sometimes healing was a quickening that would evaporate stagnant pain in an instant, which is possible in the living presence of God. Other times it felt like painstaking slowness. It takes what it takes.

To heal, I was forced into opening up, sharing, and humbling myself, by crises in real life. I look back and see the places where I could have volunteered for opening up instead. It wouldn’t have been so hard.

Today, I provide the work that I myself needed, hoping for volunteers. I accept women who freely choose healing work, and I accept those who are forced into it by emotional pain and loss. I accept those who believe in God, those who are curious about His grace, and those who are not yet able to surrender.

I have witnessed a process of surrender occur in women for many years now, at different paces. I have worked with women who met their husbands and got married within months of guidance, and with women on a slower journey surrendering various areas of their lives, who courageously keep the faith in their dream of marriage while moving, changing jobs, or addressing major issues. The willingness to change combined with structure and boundaries, community with like-minded souls, and all while dating with high standards is gold. It is preparation for marriage.

I might be seen as a coach or an influencer but I am not. I call myself a teacher for a very specific reason - I do not give up on anyone.

I accept women where they are, because I know that I was so unwilling to surrender that it took wondering if I was alive or dead after having been held up with a pistol to trust in God again. It took having my car, purse and phone stolen to realize the only loss that hurt was my little notebook of song and essay ideas tucked into my bag. It took the relief that my great aunt’s rosary was beside my bed, and not in my stolen bag to admit how much I deep-down trusted God and my origin religion.

I consider my peculiar desire (strangely combined with reluctance) to share openly in essays like this a form of a service announcement for women to free themselves from the pervasive messages of the culture and be a vulnerable human, a child of God.

If you sense a block to trusting God, if you are projecting fallible human traits in the self and others onto God, you are not alone.

Seeking God can lead to a sort of invention of a Higher Power, using the murky, syncretic options out in the culture and “we are one” New Age attitudes. I don’t actually think there is anything wrong with that type of a search for a connection, because I think all roads lead to the Lord, and it is better than a bitter and fixed dismissal of God. But be mindful. Don’t waste as much time as I did. There is a dark, hidden message in the “we are one with…” New Age narratives. It can make a fallible human drift into becoming their own little god, while projecting fallible-human traits (especially those of the parents) onto the one true God. A dangerous game.

But just keep moving. Pray however you can pray for today. God will love you through it. God is sovereign. He is not you, you are not Him. He can start healing you, right now - just ask.

Here is the course of action I suggest. Get the paperback and a good silky pen. I want you to write in the book, underline stuff, pose questions, and get a great journal that opens flat, to write in it every day. Take your time considering the material in it.

Read the Book

When you begin to feel comfortable with the principles in the book, as a paid subscriber you can join the chat, ask questions, and you’ll get the inner circle podcasts.

When you’re ready to date with high standards, and feel a sense of community with women who will not reject your dreams of marriage or tell you they are are antiquated or oppressive, it’ll be time to join us!

The Emotional Fitness Membership includes our weekly Group Zooms.

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This is its only redeeming quality — the culture’s decrepit decline scared me into remembering that God is Supreme, sovereign, and in charge.

Three years ago, the summer before we moved out of Culver City, CA, I was scared to walk the three blocks to aqua aerobics. I had been chased by a large, unhinged, mentally unstable man in the park earlier that year, while two cleaning ladies who were locking up a house stood guard from across the street watching the scene like hawks, ready to intervene on my behalf. You couldn’t call the police for these types of “unhoused” situations unless you were already physically attacked and if you did, you’d get a social worker. My hope was in two Latina mamas who were shorter than me, tracking the man well over six feet, who was psychotically yelling at me as I sped walked toward home. It left a mark. At moments, I was terrified of the mental and emotional states in the homeless people in our small town. Some of them needed an exorcist.

So, to make it to aqua class, I learned from a friend to say to myself, “Jesus of Nazareth lives here,” (meaning in me) as I walked around my neighborhood, while homeless drug addicts shouted and sparred in the bus stop that I had to pass to get to the local pool.

I couldn’t believe how much peace and power this silent declaration caused within me. I felt protected. I was stepping over human feces, often having woken up to animalistic howling from suffering human beings under my window. I was reading St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, easily imagining his plea as relevant were it to take place in the park across from where we lived at that time.

Those who have read my book know that I had always considered myself a Christian as a result of my upbringing, but became more deliberate about restoring a relationship with God in 2007 after I was held up at gunpoint in front of my home in Nashville. I walked away from that encounter feeling like I had a bee sting where the gun had been pressed into my neck. My legs felt like water and I wondered if I was still alive or on the other side; if so, I vulnerably wondered where I was headed.

When I arrived on my neighbor’s porch after my assailants took my bag, phone and car keys and let me go, he pulled me through the doorway into his living room by my arm, which felt like a noodle. “Stay here” he said, as he ran outside to see if he could chase after my stolen car. I looked up and saw a cross on the family’s living room wall. That was when I realized I was still in this world. I sat breathing, staring at that cross, realizing I did not want to dodge God anymore.

Have you ever seen the movie “American Sniper” with Bradley Cooper? In one scene, he sits at the bar procrastinating going home, having been overseas. Someone calls, wondering if he is still en route. He stalls and says into the phone, “no, I’m…stateside…” When I first saw that scene, it had been seven years since I was held up, but I spontaneously burst into tears, flashing back to the moment of staring at that cross and realizing I was alive and safe. Something about the relief of knowing you’re okay, combined with a new responsibility to take a stand in the safety, deeply resonated within me.

After I was held up, it helped to seek recovery in Alanon 12-Step groups for codependents whose lives have been affected by addiction in others. I was encouraged to explore my relationship with God without constantly flinching at religious triggers from my upbringing. I had been harmed within the framework of religion, and I appreciated a place where I could openly share about it. Alanon was a profound help, and it was also full of woke, captured (especially in LA) language that served as a gateway into the post-2020 world of unrecognizeable liberalism. In my willing search, I drifted into New Age docetism, which paints Jesus as a teacher, a celestial being, and not the Savior. He becomes a sort of luminous vending machine for manifesters. I eventually saw that for what it was and pivoted into learning about surrender and obedience through reading Scripture with guidance from mentors. I explored evangelical experiences in stadiums and mega churches and listened to lots of pastors in the car as I drove around Los Angeles. I still listen to Alistair Begg sometimes, because I find him brilliant at discerning the insidious nature of self-reliance dressed up as surrender.

Eventually, after years of mentorship from Protestants and Evangelicals, I returned to Catholicism, fixed on surviving Los Angeles. Bishop Robert Barron, assigned to LA County at that time, stood up to the Marxist mob while many remained silent. That inspired me to simply go home. I approached my reversion with a willingness to learn, and have been surprised to find the recovery and accountability system I looked for elsewhere built right into it — because Jesus is the great rehabilitator. It can get very deep, and profoundly healing. Yes, the Catholic institution is full of woke captured globalists too, they’re everywhere. That tempts me to perfect Catholicism, to prove it, to placate it. But all I can do is practice it, imperfectly, sometimes as confused as any child of God who carries on, despite their elders and relatives being trapped in a heated quarrel.

I feel encouraged by my faith to meet people where they are, and share the Gospel without pressuring them or monitoring their salvation. Who am I to know who is really saved? I don’t. As a result, on Zooms I provide for women, there is no requirement to pray like me, just with me. I follow God’s lead in helping restore the oldest, most authentic dreams in the hearts of women who seek my help. We share openly and accept each other.

I relate to what Jamie Winship, author of Living Fearless, says about people declaring their particular “brand” of Christianity like a gang member flashes his gang sign. It’s true at times, no? The point is to focus on following Christ. The one who bore it all for us, by grace. I place relationship with Him above religion. I practice with an ecumenical spirit and drop every discretionary dime on all kinds of Christian material from different denominations, and spend free time with my nose in a book. I discovered Linda Schubert, who was a part of a council for Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Her books are a constant in my prayer chair.

I approach my faith today as a beginner, allowing a full range of feelings and opinions on what has happened and what is happening in the Catholic Church, with trusted fellows who respect my faith. Where I once responded to the betrayal in the Church with betrayal, I now trust in Jesus enough to demand and command the opportunity to participate. I refuse to allow the unspeakable hidden behavior of dark, lost souls in costume, and not sacred garments, to steal even more from an innocent believer. I bow to Christ, and I attend mass to be shaped by Him, to see the religion today through His eyes. That’ll keep me busy for a good long while.

It is not easy. The thing about steadfast, active practice of Christian beliefs is it will ruin the indulgent, irresponsible aspects of your personality to an extent, because it is supposed to. Commitment to contemplating your soul and your mortality regularly will do that. It will cause you to think of others to prevent caving in on yourself. You may arrive at the places inside that once caused you to judge others or cut and run, and you will stay. You’ll want to drop everything and shut down, but if you go to the scheduled commitment anyway, you might run into someone who has the right words at the right time. It’ll show you where you could spiral, but you remember that you that you can pray instead. You’ll think more about wholesome, fortifying traditions, past generations, and future generations.

Or maybe that’s just me? You’ll have to let me know in the comments.

The first time I went back to Church with the intention of returning, as opposed to just seeking a “dose of my roots” as I used to say, the sanctuary had been closed for over a year. That was just what the immature rebel in me needed - to try the locked door, and not be granted entry. The local culture at that time caused me to grasp the need for regular attendance, practicing my faith - just as Bishop Barron teaches that Pontius Pilate unwittingly evangelized, so had my Godless neighborhood.

I still remember kneeling before mass when the sanctuary was open again, breathing, praying, and realizing I could return, over and over. After years of waffling from personality traits like people-pleasing and indecision, which don’t help with commitment, I accepted that my baptism in my parents’ living room by my Uncle was not only enough, it was not an accident.

God doesn’t make mistakes. Even as I drifted, I was keeping my great-aunt’s rosary with me and praying, and it drew me back to God’s will for me. But the Marxist-Communist bow to the culture with its terrorizing media circus, gender nonsense, scary propaganda pushing a shot that was an experiment, and the “inclusive” group thank you cards to “science” made obvious my need to deliberately seek God, practice, and prayer.

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Forty years later I found myself living on a block in Culver City, CA with a bunch of people who deliberately wore anything but red white and blue. Some believed the the flag was “offensive.”

My husband’s response to that mayhem? Adhere the flag pole to his truck bed and park his truck at the end of our driveway, requiring everyone to walk around our giant American flag.

It was awesome. We are grateful to live in this nation, and grateful for the sacrifices of all those who have served, fought, and died for our freedom.

I am utterly fascinated and often pained about what has happened in this country in the last 50 years. My lifetime has contained the normalization of tragedies in the name of progress for women, and I am working to reverse this path with many other writers, creators and voices of reason.

I wrote something in my book, Eve’s Second Chance, that I repeat on our group Zooms, and in print!

I am celebrating this 250th anniversary of the 4th of July because I am a grateful American woman. I am old enough to remember when Oprah, a major influence over women in the better part of the last fifty years, used to repeat that to be born in America was the greatest gift a woman could receive. Anyone heard her emphasize that lately? Me neither. A different message has become fashionable, because the globalist regime has taken over. Feminism is a major arm of globalism, and it is blocking the true liberation and true progress of women.

Here’s an essay on how it all unfolded, from writing 4th of July songs as a lonely single to fighting “culture capture,” and helping women get married. It is all rooted in deep appreciation for living in this country, and it all comes together on this Substack.

Happy 4th of July!

I know, I know.

Everyone is on their phones, all the time.

Be the one who is not - it may give you an edge. You must signal your availability.

Signaling is an ageless, biological, natural, wonderful, sociable thing to do. To signal and meet other good-hearted single masculine leaders leads to flirting, which leads to dating, which leads to marriage. Here are five suggestions for adding signaling to your life, all the time.

1. Look cute, dress up, and wear makeup - all the time. If you are single and long to be married, you cannot afford to be slumming around in sweats and no makeup. If you were a construction worker, you wouldn't go to a job site in a tux. Similarly, if you’re single and available, don’t go anywhere if you're not looking cute!

   

   2. Signal to yourself. Surround yourself with imagery of loving couples. All over your fridge, your walls, your bathroom. When I was single and dating to marry, I placed this gift from my sister in my bedroom so that I would see it as soon as I woke up every day.

   

3. Tell everyone you know you are single, dating to marry, turning away from the gimmicks of the culture, and are open to being set up with a good-hearted, marrying-kind of man. There is no shame in sharing your reality! Tell the receptionist at the dentist. Tell the barista. It’s much better than hiding in silence. The more you open up to others about your willingness to meet their friends, the more accepting you will feel about yourself, and the path to real commitment.

   

   4. Have a pellegrino or eat dinner at the bar during a crowded happy hour in an upscale restaurant where working single men gather after work, alone or with a friend. I did this a lot when I was single! Self-esteem, enjoying your own company, impeccable self-care and a joyful spirit is irresistible to a good-hearted man. Talk to the bartender, look around, talk to your friend, and flirt with other patrons! I do not recommend you drink on dates or at bars, but those are places where you can make a contact and go on a sociable date for tea or coffee in the future.

   

   5. Signal by smiling and holding eye contact at a guy, for five full seconds. I wrote more about this teaching from Dr. Pat Allen in my book. It is the hardest thing to do! You are not alone, it was hard for me too - but it is an ageless and perfectly natural thing to do. Decades ago, a single girl’s life contained plenty of opportunities to do this in sociable environments. Now our environment is different, but human beings are still made of the same capacity for intimacy on the inside. This is a wholesome way to express it and attract a compatible guy. It is actually virtuous, although many shy and virtuous women feel as if they are being too forward by doing it. Break through and try it. The feminine energy follower signals with her eyes and smile, the masculine energy leader responds and talks first. More info in this post below.

Need support sharing openly in an environment with other like-minded singles before you can venture out and take these five steps? That’s okay! We meet on Zoom every Friday.

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Look at this captured girl. Too cool for being a lady. Poor baby.

I never got as far as acting like a man in the workplace, because it was appealing to be a chick singer who could play instruments. But I felt it was moral to demonstrate my “empowered” and “evolved” feminist nature by holding my own door. Deep down however, I was angry. I was unconsciously carving a life out of reacting to and proving to others, while feebly hoping I was on the verge of stardom. It was a life so delusional that getting held up at gunpoint, the third in a series of crises one spring during my early 30s, was the only thing that would finally snap me out of the insanity.

That was twenty years ago. I was a captured, deluded feminist until I broke open and was saved by grace, in stages.

I moved away from Nashville and began creating a more ordinary life in Los Angeles (if that is even possible - but that is another essay). But it would take awhile to realize that not doing things felt odd. Not leading. Not taking over. Instead, I was letting go and recovering memories of walking down the stairs as a little girl and seeing my father beam at me, saying “well you look very pretty!” I was allowing myself to becoming a lady again, to recover the oldest dreams in my heart, slowly, but deeply, through the mechanism of a seemingly superficial choice like letting someone hold the door for me.

It was a path of no longer seeking a miserable outlook.

Feminists are miserable, though they present that they are not - but you can’t fake a vibration. They are often scanning for an opportunity to be offended by someone who is making an attempt to cherish them. If a man shows effort by opening a door, it is the wrong kind of effort. The confusing game is, men are wrong, all the time - but the Feminist movement has simultaneously established men as the highest standard, to be matched in the workplace and the world.

Effort that is different and better for a woman is constantly pointed out by feminists, which is confusing, because they have also intensely devalued women by encouraging them to behave like men.

Lisa Bevere, one of my favorite authors, said it well on Seth Gruber’s podcast.

Are you ready to depart from an insane paradigm and recover what is true and good?

You get to yield, open, bloom into your feminine nature and return to being a lady. Someone who accepts and receives help, kindness, care, and the warmth of chivalry.

It is indeed a return. It is how it all started for you, before you got captured.

You have choices. Feminists on the Internet frame this hamster wheel as moral: anger toward all the simple things that men want to do for you, while whining about all that they have to do for themselves.

Do you really, really want to feel that burdened all the time?

I didn’t think so.

Here’s your kit.

1. Stop opening doors. Slow down, stand in front of them, look around. You may meet someone. Signal your willingness to receive. Write with a pen in your journal about how you felt. Were you annoyed? Impatient? Uncomfortable? Good! Feel, sense, know what you felt, and write about it. I taught our sons how to carry things for me and to open doors by standing and staring at a bag or a door. They were already formed and growing teens and I didn’t want to disrespect them, I wanted to nudge them toward good. So I was breezy and kind and would wait. When they got the hint I praised them, and called them gentlemen, because they are and I am proud of them for it. You don’t need to teach or preach to another grown man, that’s the good news. Just wait and let him help you!

2. Make a list of all of the women you know or have known who let men hold the door. The ones who are happily married, generous, encouraging, fun, nurturing, seem to love their life, and treasure all their blessings. Consider whether you have ever seen them get mad at someone for helping them. Decide to contemplate being more like them.

3. Make a list of all the men you know who strive to make things easier and nicer for the women in their life. Decide to contemplate what a good vibe it is, when men pin down the perimeter and make things nice for their family and friends. Realize how many good men will also adjust to the reaction of anger at their effort. Because men are so valiantly willing to help women, they may cherish the anger a feminist feels about them holding a door and stop doing it, which is also an attempt to help her. Find some compassion for that sad state of affairs.

A few years after completely changing my outlook and letting God change my life, I met my husband.

When we were first dating, we went paddleboarding, and then back to his house before our dinner plans. I had told him I wanted to shower before dinner. I was swimming in his pool while he put the paddle boards away, and then he was in the house for a while. I didn’t know what he was doing, I was just happily swimming around. He came outside to say that he had started a hot shower for me. When I dashed into the house out of the pool, I realized he had gone to my car and gotten my bag and all of my things and put them in the bathroom. I thanked him and he said that he wanted me to feel at home and not self-conscious while getting dressed after the shower. He was such a gentleman. I felt protected and to this day, almost 14 years later, I still remember showering in peace and privacy, welling up a little in my eyes that I had found someone who was so motivated to cherish me.

Aren’t feminists constantly going on about privacy and safety?

Let him hold the door. Notice how you feel and track your feelings with friends who understand you, and in your journal.

If you want to be able to share about it in a place where others will listen without judgement, join our Emotional Fitness Zooms!

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