🌊 Curious about the Encounter Retreat? Five seats left. Email me RETREAT and let's chat! (PS- You get 6 months in the Rooted Community for free! 🤭)

Can I go back to church after this? Do I have to tell anyone? What if my church wouldn't handle it well?

There's a specific kind of hard in sitting through a service carrying something nobody in the room knows about. Standing while the music plays, wondering if you have any right to sing the words.

I sat in that for years. Today I'm telling you what finally changed, and the one thing that has to be true before going back actually works.

We explore:

• The church where I went through the women by name and couldn't tell a single one
• Why "I never doubted God's forgiveness" and "I was terrified of people's opinions" are both true and not the same thing
• The one thing that has to be true: not everyone has to know, but someone there does
• The four markers that made my pastor and his wife safe, and why "won't rush me" matters as much as "won't condemn me"
• An honest word if your church genuinely isn't safe, and the two possibilities worth asking God about
• Why you're not a liability in that room

Your one step: name one person at your church who might be safe. You don't have to tell her. Just name her.

Let's Connect:

📞 Book your private Breakthrough Call: https://learn.kristinajoycoaching.com/breakthrough

💌 Email: kristina@kristinajoycoaching.com

🌊 Curious about the Encounter Retreat? Five seats left. Email me RETREAT and let's chat! (PS- You get 6 months in the Rooted Community for free! 🤭)

Why does my body react before I even know why? Why can't I control this? Shouldn't my faith be enough?

Today I'm telling you about the night I stood in the rain knocking on a door nobody was answering, knowing exactly how irrational it looked and being completely unable to stop.

Here's what was actually happening: sensory information hits your amygdala about half a second before it reaches the thinking part of your brain. Your body makes the call first. Your mind arrives second and builds a story to explain what already happened.

That's not a spiritual failure. That's the equipment God gave you.

We explore:

• The half-second gap between your body's decision and your mind's explanation
• Why the same system that keeps you alive in real danger fires when his name shows up on a screen
• The honest answer to "why isn't Jesus enough?"
• Orienting: a somatic body tool you can use the moment you feel the spike

Your one step: next time you're triggered, name what your body did before you judge what you felt. Then look around the room.

Let's Connect:

📞 Book your private Breakthrough Call: https://learn.kristinajoycoaching.com/breakthrough

💌 Email: kristina@kristinajoycoaching.com

One hundred and fifty episodes. 🎉

No framework today. No five steps. Today I'm simply telling you what I've been praying, over the Encounter Retreat coming in four weeks, and over you.

I share where my mind keeps landing as I've sat with the word encounter: Moses and the burning bush, and the moment that changed everything. Because there is no way to encounter the living God and come back unchanged. The woman at the well didn't. The woman caught in adultery didn't. Peter didn't. And Jesus didn't telephone down from heaven. He came and walked with us. Presence was the whole method.

We explore:

• Why I named it the Encounter Retreat
• The actual, unpolished prayers I'm praying over this weekend- for courage, for obstacles to be removed, for strongholds to break
• My own honest fears about building this, and what I keep coming back to
• And then my heart and what I'm praying for you: chains breaking, shame dismantled, wisdom for your real decisions, and a God who keeps calling His daughters home

Sometimes the most powerful thing that happens to a woman is finding out someone has been praying for her without her knowing. So now you know.

🌊 Email me RETREAT and let’s talk! (PS- You get 6 months in the Rooted Coaching Community for free! 🤭)

And if a retreat isn't your season, email me anyway and tell me what you'd want me to pray for. I read every one, and I'll actually pray it.

Let's Connect:

📞 Book your private Breakthrough Call: https://learn.kristinajoycoaching.com/breakthrough

💌 Email: kristina@kristinajoycoaching.com

🌊 Curious about the Encounter Retreat? Email me RETREAT and let’s chat! (PS- You get 6 months in the Rooted Community for free! 🤭)

Can I really be close to someone who doesn't know? Am I being fake by not telling her? Who actually needs to know, and who doesn't?

A client asked me this recently and I haven't stopped thinking about it. She said it feels like there's a huge part of her she's keeping hidden, and it's not a small part, it's the thing that changed everything. So how is she supposed to be genuinely close to anyone?

Today I answer that honestly, including the part of the answer that isn't comfortable.

We explore:

• The difference between secrecy and privacy (one runs on shame, the other is a boundary you choose)
• Who I told, who I didn't, who didn't know for years, and what those relationships actually felt like
• The honest answer about whether a best friendship can survive intentional withholding
• Why the standard isn't "tell everyone." It's "tell someone."

This week, name one relationship where you want more closeness, and one true thing you could share this week that isn't the whole story.

Let's Connect:

📞 Book your private Breakthrough Call: https://learn.kristinajoycoaching.com/breakthrough

💌 Email: kristina@kristinajoycoaching.com

🌊 Curious about the Encounter Retreat? Email me RETREAT and let’s chat! (PS- You get 6 months in the Rooted Community for free! 🤭)

Why don't I know who I am anymore? Why does the shame feel this specific? And what does it actually take to let go?

Today I'm joined by Lauren LaRusso, licensed psychotherapist, author of Beyond Infidelity, and someone who has walked through her own betrayal and sat with hundreds of clients in the aftermath of theirs. Her practice sees every side of this: betrayed spouses, unfaithful spouses, and affair partners.

And she said something in this conversation I haven't stopped thinking about: shame sounds identical on both sides of the story. We read one of her own journal entries from her worst season, and it's almost word for word what the women I coach say to me.

We explore:

• The "looking glass self"- why most of us build identity on who we think others perceive us to be, and what happens when that mirror shatters
• Control as the centerpiece of an active affair and my own moment of realizing I couldn't manage the outcome of my confession
• What shame actually is, where it originates, and the step-by-step practice for releasing it
• Why meditation and mindfulness aren't optional
• The difference between needing someone and wanting them, and why finding your whole self comes first

Whether you're rebuilding your marriage or you're not, this conversation is about identity, control, and what's waiting on the other side.

Connect with Lauren:

📖 Beyond Infidelity: available everywhere books are sold

🌐 laurenlarusso.com

📲 https://www.instagram.com/laurenlarusso/

Let's Connect:

📞 Book your private Breakthrough Call: https://learn.kristinajoycoaching.com/breakthrough

💌 Email: kristina@kristinajoycoaching.com

Email me and tell me what landed. I read every single one and I write back.

🌊 Curious about the Encounter Retreat? Email me RETREAT and let’s chat! (PS- You get 6 months in the Rooted Community for free! 🤭)

Why can't I stick to anything? I'll finally get around to caring for myself once life slows down…

Back in the spring I was asked about whether I'd actually follow through on a plan I'd been sitting on for months. I answered honestly: probably not, but it'll be easier when my schedule opens up.

The response reframed everything: if a habit doesn't exist in constraint, it usually doesn't appear in freedom.

I didn't have a scheduling problem. I had a self-trust problem, wrapped in a very reasonable story about the calendar.

We explore:

• Why more margin doesn't produce the habit, and what actually shows up instead
• Pete Scazzero's Rule of Life and the trellis image that changed how I think about structure (From his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)
• My own rule and how genuinely small it was: two minutes of silence, one Psalm, one short walk, water and sleep
• Why freedom with no limits isn't freedom
• Start with who you want to be this year, and let the habits follow

Your one step: name one constraint this week that could create more freedom for you. Then email me and tell me what you picked.

Let's Connect:

📞 Book your private Breakthrough Call: https://learn.kristinajoycoaching.com/breakthrough

💌 Email: kristina@kristinajoycoaching.com

🌊 Curious about the Encounter Retreat? Email me RETREAT and let’s chat! (PS- You get 6 months in the Rooted Community for free! 🤭)

Am I doing this right? How do I know if I'm actually healing? And what am I even working toward?

Most women in affair recovery are measuring themselves against a scoreboard they never agreed to. One where the only metric is whether the marriage survived. Today I want to hand you a different one.

I share exactly what I believed success looked like in my early healing (repair the marriage, make it better than ever, lead a ministry together), why that definition broke, and what I know now instead.

We explore:

• Why a definition of success that requires another person's cooperation isn't a definition
• What "healed" actually means
• The markers I look for in women who are genuinely healing
• Where I stand on marriage and reconciliation
• Reclamation vs. recovery
• Why abundant life is the real scoreboard

Your one step: write down your definition of success in this season. Not what anyone else says. Yours. Then email it to me! I read every one and I write back.

And if you look at what you wrote and think "I don't know how to get there from here," that's exactly what a Breakthrough Call is for. Or email me RETREAT and let's talk about September. 🕊️

Let's Connect:

📞 Book your private Breakthrough Call: https://learn.kristinajoycoaching.com/breakthrough

💌 Email: kristina@kristinajoycoaching.com

🌊 Curious about the Encounter Retreat? Email me RETREAT and let’s chat! (PS- You get 6 months in the Rooted Community for free! 🤭)

Why do I still miss him? I've done the work, I know what's true, so why can't I fully cut him off? What is wrong with me?

Nothing. There's a part of you doing exactly what she was built to do, and today I'm teaching you how to lead her instead of fighting her.

This episode is Internal Family Systems applied directly to the longing you can't seem to shake. I walk you through my own part, what she feels like, what she's actually afraid of, and the two-option lie that kept me stuck for years.

We explore:

• Why there are no bad parts of you, including the one that wants to text him at 10pm
• Three questions to ask your own part (pause the episode and answer them. This is where breakthroughs happen!)
• What attunement means and why your parts need it more than they need correction
• Compassionate leadership: why your protector part isn’t in control
• What to actually do when the feeling is intense

Your one step: ask that part of you what do you actually need right now? Write down whatever comes. Don't edit it.

Email me and tell me what she said. I read every one and I write back personally! 🕊️

Let's Connect:

📞 Book your private Breakthrough Call: https://learn.kristinajoycoaching.com/breakthrough

💌 Email: kristina@kristinajoycoaching.com