Identity 2.0 homework

 

I am sharing here because I think out of Identity 2.0 course I am taking right now this is my fave exersize. 

We are to find 3 top lies, flip the script, and find supporting truths of the opposite from the Bible.

I share here because this is part of me being or showing for accountability in my growth journey. (even though some weeks anxiety/depression win) 

My current lies I am invisible, I am not important, I am not valuable, God loves others but not me. 

Lie 1- I am invisible- God's truth Genesis 16:13 NIV You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.'" 

Lie 2- I am not important - God's truth Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV) "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." 

God didn’t make a mistake when He made you. He was intentional, personal, and careful. You are fearfully and wonderfully made — that means you matter 

Lie 3- I am not valuable- God's truth Luke 15:4-7 (The Parable of the Lost Sheep)"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?" 

God values every individual—so much that He leaves the 99 to seek just one. You are that one when you feel lost or forgotten.

 Lie 4- God loves others but not me- God's truth- Galatians 2:20 (NIV)"The Son of God… loved me and gave himself for me." 

Paul makes it personal: "He loved me." You can insert your name here. Jesus didn’t die for an idea—He died for individual people, including you. 

Affirmations 

 • I am not invisible, God sees me and knows me 

• I am important to my creator he knit me together in my mother's womb 

• I am valuable to God and when I was lost he came after me. 

• God loves me, he died for me and my sins

Love is but for some.

 

You know this is something that I wanted since I was 5 years old. I wanted to be married, I wanted a husband, but life has been showing me otherwise.

Can I be straight with you? Marriage can be an idol, a husband can become an idol, and love can become an idol. And this is what it was for me. 

God has been showing me things lately, and I think this is why, at age 44, I haven't even been on a date with a man. I have never even spent more time with a man besides my dad.

I think its because I gave it priority, and put it above God. I see this now, with all the work I do on myself to grow and expand, and peel back layers. 

It's really hard seeing everyone you know finding love, and you can't even get a man. But, as I said, since I was young, I've been looking and looking for love, and giving it priority, and it never flourished in my life.

Honestly, even writing this out is incredibly hard to admit, but I must if I want to heal. 

Church and people don't make it any easier; they add to the pressure of finding someone. Asking questions like Are you married yet, etc. Church influence and societal values prioritize marriage above all. Even car insurance is cheaper if you're married vs single.

Even now, people view single women as less than women. A woman is to get a husband, and then she is worth something. 

I also do not believe in the lie that we need someone to complete us. Even within the Christian faith, I see posts people post about someone being their other half. And that they would be incomplete without them. I truly believe this is a social pressure and feel its also a lie that has been fed to us for far too long.

Do we need to be completed, yes, but by Christ. A man or a woman does not complete us. A partner should enhance our life, not look to make it complete. And it hurts me to hear people say that about their children. Children are a blessing but they don't complete you.

Yes, I do not see the typical faith-based person's perspective. Does God honour marriage? Yes, but it's not like there is a person out there for everyone. This is something Disney and romance movies teach us at a very young age. Some of us never find someone. Plenty of people who are single, especially religious figures.

I got tired of the broken record hearing people say. Oh you'll find someone. Trying to stay optimistic, but 10 years down the road, and have not even had a conversation. 

A husband/wife is a gift some selected people get to have for others this is not part of their experience. It's romantic to think there is someone out there for everyone, but it's not the actual reality. 

Radiant Leadership Academy & Identity 2.0

 

God is so good in the learning and the growing, and it's not all easy work. Some of it can be quite a struggle, but this is how we grow. If everything were easy, we wouldn't ever grow.

So I will back things up. Kingdom Alliance has various signature courses, but the one I will write about, I am on my second pass at it. The thing I love about being able to retake classes is that we get to peel back layers, and we hear and learn new things every time.

RLA stands for Radiant Leadership Academy. It is one of the signature courses that they offer. Many people have jumped in and done RLA alone because that's where so many people were having chains broken and fall to the ground.

Here is a description of the course. 
Radiant Leadership Academy – LEVEL II is a 9-week advanced course designed to elevate your leadership and create a greater Kingdom impact. This next-level program offers high accountability and a deeper dive into leadership development. Whether you've taken RLA multiple times, just once, or not at all this course will strengthen your leadership skills and prepare you for even greater influence. Register now to level up your leadership!

I am behind on posting, but I will make a post for each week and what I got out of it.  To be completely honest, I am not going to be posting all my takeaways here. I will select a few. If I give you everything, then it defeats the purpose of taking the course. I will share 3 or 4 significant takeaways.

This week, our topic was surrender. Yes, we started with a really challenging topic first thing, and why not? Surrender is not an easy topic for most people because we feel like we are giving up. But with God and how he works, everything is his timing. He is not necessarily denying what we want, but there is a time and place, and sometimes we are not ready to receive what it is we are after. But this is another topic for another post. 

The one point in the lesson that stood out to me so much was 

• To fully surrender to God, we must reach a level of acceptance
To truly surrender, we need to reach some level of acceptance.Althought we may not like it or agree with it, that is the situation. It's not easy when we are dealing with something, and so often we want control, but to give it to God, we need to say Hey, I don't like that this person died, or this person is talking bad about me, but God, I give it to you and you handle it. 

Another point that was made that really stood out to me is

• No level of emotion can change a situation
Who else has thought that if I put all my emotion into it, things will change? Does pouring all your emotions bring someone back from the dead? Of course not. We live in a fallen world. This really hit me. It matters not how much emotion you put into it; that does not change the situation.

The final point I will share that really stood out to me is

• Trusting God requires us to praise God in all circumstances.
This one is super tough for me. When you get an illness, or someone dies, or something terrible happens, it's hard to just go into praise mode. But this is what God wants from us. It reminds me of the verse, and it fits perfectly with this thought. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

While all these points stood out (plus I have way more than shared). I think it's the final one that I really feel I hear God speaking to me. Give thanks to learn to give thanks no matter what. Lost a job, give praise, lost a friend, give praise, marriage fails, give praise. I know it sounds so hard to do, but I really feel like God uses everything for his glory, no matter what has happened. But if you're sitting wondering how to do this. You are not alone. I am still learning this, too. 

Identity 2.0 
Unfortunately, for this past week, I didn't have any takeaways, but I will say one of the homework assignments was to take the top three labels you give, such as worthless, turn them into a positive and find the corresponding Bible verse for it.

Here is the description of what the course is about, so you can understand what this course is rooted in.

The Identity 2.0 Program is a 6-week transformative course designed to expose and counteract the subtle tactics used to undermine your identity in Christ. This program dives deep into understanding how doubt, deception, and distraction can distort your view of God, yourself, and your purpose. 

I will hopefully, in the next post, share my top 3 lies and then the corresponding Bible verse that reflects what God says I am. 

Vegan Journey

 

My vegan journey is the subject of a story that can be read in the following post. This is not about my vegan journey itself, but rather a lifelong process.

Those who know me are aware that I was involved in activism from 2014 to 2018, possibly until 2019. I lost track of the exact date I stopped. 

Well, I might not be in the streets bringing awareness to animals bound for slaughter, doing an event where we try to get the public to be aware and engage, but you can't take this out of me. 

Can I say something? The vegan community disappointed me. Unless you are out there doing things all the time, people don't care about you. When I slowly stopped in 2017, no one took the time to ask me if I was okay, what was going on and this slowly dissolved.

It's hard because this is supposed to be a community that claims to speak for all beings. I saw a side I was not expecting. People keep saying ahisma, yet the lack of human caring made me see a different side. I am not naming names, but it was a significant disappointment. 

It felt like a gathering of similarly minded, but a disconnect to humans. I saw people shouting names at people and thought, My goodness, we are here to make people aware, not shout names at people. This was not what I signed up for. How are we to open the eyes when we are shouting insults?

I am not saying all this to also do the same; I am speaking what I saw and my experience to address what is broken in a community. 

You have no idea in May 2014 when I was standing bearing witness to pigs how much empowerment I felt standing up for something I believe in. It meant so much. But there are lots that are broken within a community.

I may not be attending vigils, demonstrations, and events related to animal rights activism, but this does not mean I am no longer an activist. I am just changing how it is done. 

I still feel that the animals are why I am here. I still think it's part of my mission, I feel its the how that is changing. Everything I did in between those years, I think I was meant to. It was part of my mission. Now the how is shifting. 

God is shifting this, and I am now in a different location, for whatever purpose and mission he has for me here. All the activism I did from 2014 till I could no longer do I was meant to do. It fueled me. It gave me purpose but I believe I am on the journey to something deeper that God has for me.

I will always stand for animal rights. I chose to live a vegan lifestyle, but those days of protests for me are done. However, I will find other ways to speak up for animals.

Volunteer Work.

 

So this blog post is not really related to religion, or my faith in a way. It's not growing spiritually focused on a course or a book, but being what God calls us to do.

My dad died in 2022, and since July of that year, I have been doing volunteer work at my local shelter. This has filled me in so many ways.

For the longest time and for the majority of my volunteering, I was there for the feeding shift. So I would let the dogs go out to take care of nature calls; sometimes they would play a bit. I usually leave feeding for the very last thing. I'd wash bowls and also fill up their water, or change their water. There was a lot. I was consistent every week, except for a few times.

It's been an honour and continues to be to serve God's critters. It has brought me so much immense joy to see so many dogs find homes, to see the growth so many dogs have had. Some are incredibly scared to come out of their shell.

These dogs have stamped my heart with their paw print. I started my volunteer work because I feel its my call to help them. At a very young age, I used to see commercials of humane shelters, and it really spoke to me so much. I have had a deep love for dogs, and I must say, too, for cats as well, but having dogs all my life, I have a deep bond with this species. 

When I was young, I did not know what it looked like and had experiences with dogs roaming the streets back in the native country of my parents (Brazil). It spoke to me at such a young age, I said something needs to be done. 

When I was working with someone to help me find work the lady heard a commericial talking with an organization that helps cats and dogs. They are a Canadian organization, and I got connected with them. I took a chance and messaged because I saw on their website that they were looking for a graphic designer, and that was my background, and I also did photography. So the founder invited me to a spay and neuter clinic they were doing in Mexico. From Jan 2012- Nov 2019, I did massive spay and neuter clinics.

However, I felt the urge to stop counting down and instead help local animals in need as well. Love knows no boundaries and animals everywhere need a helping hand. But it's been so good to help local dogs too. This is the highlight of my week. Its so good to spend so much time getting to know so many dogs. The photo in this post is just some of the dogs I got to meet and got to know.

I truly feel that this is a big pull to why I am here. Why I am on earth and God created me to be born and live on earth. Although the animals do not belong to us. None of what we have belongs to us. God just lets us having it for a while.

I would love to have a part time work with animals or doing more for them but right now I am so blessed to get to for the past 3 years see so many dogs. See so many transformations. And most importantly see them find their forever homes after being let down by humans.

New age

 

What I am going to say is not a judgment, but I want to warn others of the dangers that are hidden in the new age way of life.

When I was in New Age I did all the things. I had tarot cards, wore crystals, and had books on New Age topics, such as spirit guides, etc. I attended fairs on New Age. I went and saw an "animal communicator," etc.

I truly wish I had never gotten involved with it, but like God, He can turn the worst thing about it and make it for His glory and His alone.

One of the biggest things I did and spent a lot of time on was sound frequencies. When you even search for these on YouTube, I even remember seeing warnings on them that they are not responsible for what happens. With New Age, each part of the body is labelled with a Chakra. Your feet, for example, are the root chakra. Just Google chakras, and you will get a diagram, but I advise you to stay away from it.

I would listen to these for hours at a time, and it plays a big part today in why I have the pain that I do in my body. So what exactly do you need to look out for if it says 555Hz, stay away from it. Stay away from anything that has Hz in the title. They are not healing. They actually hurt you. The one "chakra" I focused on is the part of my body that I am having deep pain and troubles with. Please be careful what you listen to. 555 Hz is just an example; many other frequencies are supposed to fit a chakra. 

Another thing I am so over and falls with New Age is manifestation. This is dangerous because the universe is space, planets, stars, galaxies, etc. The universe does not have you back, and you don't say I want a car, and you get a car back. We have a sovereign Lord. Those who are parents will understand. If your kid wants to put his hand on the stove that is on. Do you let him? No you warn him not to touch.

This thing of manifesting really bothers me. People say I am manifesting my home, etc. Having pictures of it does not make it any more yours or a part of your life. I am really bothered by this, and hearing people say Oh, I manifested it. Why, because it takes all the power from God. Every good and perfect gift comes from above James 1:17.

The problem is that sometimes we get things we think we want, and then they turn out to be disastrous. With manifestation, it takes the power out of God and places it all on ourselves, but really, we can't manifest these things, and it's displeasing to God because it puts ourselves higher than Him.

I don't say these things ot judge. I was once caught in the rabbit hole of New Age way of life but it can really take you dark places if you start digging more. New Age is dangerous and I warn people to stay clear of it.

God can use my time there for his glory. His love for me called me out of the way of life I was living. He can do the same for you. Let us remember the Bible clearly tells us that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light ( 2 Corinthians 11:14). It's very deceiving because in part New Age takes some truths and then twists it to fit the narrative people want.

But in John 14:6, Jesus tells us he is the truth. I am not looking here to convert people; I have no agenda. I just want to warn others about the dangers of New Age, and not everything on YouTube is good. Some things sound good, but they can really do more harm than good.

What I truly invite you to do is to start talking with God. Start small. Maybe start with God, please guide me today, and work your way up.  God wants a relationship with us, and no matter what we have done, he can redeem and use it for His glory!