Episode 37
Transcript
Welcome back to the Fully Nourished podcast, a place to explore where female physiology and feminine energy dance together to shape our life experience. I'm your host, Jessica Ash, functional nutritionist and integrative health coach and I'm inviting you to journey with me through both the scientific and spiritual facets of what it looks like to awaken our feminine radiance and become deeply and fully nourished despite living in a society that is increasingly desperate to erase our female set-apartness. You ready?
As a reminder, everything in this podcast is for education and inspiration only and is not intended as medical advice. Please talk to the appropriate professional when necessary. And please use common sense before making any changes to your diet and lifestyle.
Yum. I just had the best dinner. It was so delightful because it was easy and delicious. I get these gluten-free millet ramen noodles at Costco. I'm able to find them at my local Costco, but I've seen them at grocery stores as well. And they're so nice because they only take four minutes to cook. And then when I do anything that's starchy, then anything that's ground down or “refined,” meaning it's grounded to a smaller particle size, especially when it comes to a grain that's ground down into flour or small parts. It definitely is a more simpler starch. And so something that I've been implementing for almost a year now and experimenting around with is always adding a non starchy vegetable to starches, or at least refined starches. Pastas are a great example of this. And it really makes a big difference in my gut health, blood sugar response to starches.
I have a little bit more of wiggle room in my response to starch and it honestly just makes the meal more enjoyable. Like it's really nice to have a little bit of crisp kvetch with a starch. And it makes it more satisfying and enjoyable, at least for me. So I added some steamed cabbage and some steamed broccoli, those steam really well. And then I just added some normal ground beef that I cooked up with salt and our sauce. And then I just added some, I added this like red pepper and tomato soup as the sauce and just did it up with a little bit of salt and some spices. And it was really good. It was a really easy dinner. And it was really enjoyable, but I will stop my spiel about my dinner and dive into this episode that has just been ruminating inside of my head for a couple of weeks.
A New Series
It's at the beginning of a little four part series. That I'm going to do because I couldn't jam it all into one episode. It's called heresy heals and yes, heresy like heretic. That's what I'm referring to. And as we go through each part of this four part series I want to just talk about where having a healthy skepticism and an attitude of almost defiance in a way, is really lacking and missing in our culture. And we just accept things like just okay. Just because everyone else is accepting them and I think a lot of us, especially those of you that are attracted to this podcast are deeper thinkers. You think outside the box and you go, wait a minute. That doesn't feel right? Wait a minute. Are we, am I, the only one that feels this way and it can actually make you feel like something's wrong with you. It can be a really lonely thing to experience. And I hope that this series in part just helps you feel not so alone.
If I sound a little tired in this episode, I apologize. It's just because it's nighttime and I don't normally record at nighttime. So I'm just a little bit more like quiet. If you're watching on YouTube, I just have my red light on, I'm cozy, the sun's going down. And so that's just the vibes for this episode. A little spring coziness, I've been really enjoying the cozy cardio trend on social media. I absolutely love that idea. It is. I just love how we're all starting to romanticize just the simple things in life. Again, just absolutely chef's kiss.
You've probably noticed that over the past couple of weeks, I was alternating guest episodes to solo episodes back and forth. So for this Heresy Heals series, we're going to be stopping that pattern just for four episodes. And then I would like to spend the summer answering your questions. So I will bring on the guest occasionally, especially if it's requested but I actually want to formulate our episodes a little bit more around our community. So you'll see in the show notes that there's going to be a form included from now on that allows you to submit questions and your question may be featured on an episode if you would like it to be.
Now this episode is a little bit of an extension or an update if we want to call it that of the my spiritual journey two part episode that I did a little while back. I got so much feedback from that episode, so many of us are going through such a similar thing. And we feel alone. I just felt like being vulnerable, even though it was really vulnerable for me to share, I don't normally like to share that kind of stuff publicly, because it usually garners a lot of feedback. And I'm just Sensitive Sally, I have a really soft soul. I really do care what people think, of course, but I care about sharing the truth more. And I care about setting us free with the truth setting women free. So after I saw how many of you were touched by that episode, and also how many resources you were asking about, just you were like, Tell me more, I knew I was gonna do a follow up. But I just didn't know how I wanted to do it, because I didn't want to talk about myself for another hour and a half. So I wanted to maybe weave a lesson into there if we could, because teacher at heart, and we are weaving this stuff back to nourishment, and the idea of the coming fully nourished. So I decided to label this episode “searching for truth as nourishment for the undernourished spirit.” And I think that if you're not somebody that's really into the spiritual stuff, maybe you're gonna just be like, Nah, that's not my thing. Totally understandable. But I do have a lot of followers and listeners that are really, a lot of them are, would classify themselves as a part of the Christian religion, and they are really struggling and are really suffering. And I don't want to ignore this, because it does play into to nourishment, our worldview, how we view our body, how we view life, and death absolutely impacts our approach to nourishment, and our approach to just life in general, which is, of course, going to impact our wellness. So that's why I do choose to weave this stuff into a nutrition or a nourishment podcast, because this is the discussions around nourishment that are not being had that need to be had.
And that's why when I start to get these kind of almost, I would say triggered emails from women who are asking questions, maybe they don't know the best way to frame the question. And they are really afraid for their lives. So of course, they're going to be defensive and a little bit angry, I would too. And I have a lot of compassion. Because I've been there, I know what it feels like to start wrestling with what you believe. And then to start to bump up against the programming of, if I question this, am I gonna go to hell, and then you have to wrestle with it for a little while. And then there comes this point where you take a plunge and you say, if this sends me to hell, I'll go to hell. And it's a really scary process.
Feminine Energetics
But this is a perfect example of one of my pillars of feminine energetics, which is referred to as feminine purity. I mentioned another pillar a couple episodes back about feminine clarity. And few of you said, when are we going to learn more about these pillars. And this is actually what my upcoming free masterclass is about. It is going to be the pillars of feminine energetics. So you'll learn about these but the pillar of feminine purity is really about this idea that purity has been hijacked from us, we've started to treat ourselves like objects and think that the object remains your friend, I guess we could say, then it'll be worth value. And if it doesn't remain pure, it's not worth any value. And that's such a, just a false and dangerous belief, purity and being refined is always occurring is an ongoing process until we return home till we return back to our maker, we are being continuously refined or saved. We're in a constant process of salvation, or evolution, whatever you want to call it, we are constantly being purified within this refiner's fire. And we always have to be a part of this process. That's a part of the way the universe works is there's a lot of free will. And so you get to continue to wrestle with the truth and continue to figure out the truth of who you are. And to figure out the ways that you're missing the mark. Sin means it's missing the mark. That's literally what the word means. And you get to continually change and grow.
This is what life is about. It's to grow in wisdom, which to me is synonymous with seeking the Spirit of Truth or the Spirit of God, truth and God are this thing that we call God is infinite mind that we live within, that are inadequate human words refer to as god that is so vast and mysterious to the point of being completely unknowable. Growing in wisdom and truth is, quote, growing closer to the infinite mind that we live with it. And in the Scripture, it says, within him, we live and move and have our being. That’s very difficult to wrap our minds around. Because this is a God that never changes. This is a God that is everywhere all at once. There's nothing outside of it, which is hard for us to comprehend, and is infinite, it always has been, it's complete. So it can't lose a part of itself or gain apart, there's nothing to gain, there's nothing to lose. It's a very difficult thing. It's like a labyrinth when you start to try to think about it.
And because I just love excruciating pain. My prayer is always for wisdom, I am always praying for truth to be revealed to me. And man is that a double edged sword to pray, because truth hurts, it is the one thing that that has the ability to sucker punch you over and over again. Because pain and suffering are often the modes in which truth is revealed to you. Because they're usually the only thing that often gets our attention and gets us uncomfortable enough to think outside the box or look outside of our current perspective. But for whatever reason, I keep coming back for more. And I always just keep seeking. And I think of the verse in 2 Timothy, where it just says, do your best to present yourself to God, and to not be ashamed, and to correctly handle the word of truth. Obviously, I'm human, I missed the mark and I do my best. And I'm always seeking it. And it would be a travesty if I don't share what I've learned. And I don't share what I've discovered over the years, with women who are hungry for it, because the most excruciating part of being a truth seeker and learning truths and being really hungry for truth is that you start to realize that false beliefs or lies, or not, everybody wants it. And not everybody has ears to listen, they have ears to hear and to react, but they don't have ears to listen. And even when the truth that is being shared, resonates fully deep into their bones, and it breaks them free of all of their chains.
Because truth often sets us free, you realize that people are very comfortable under the weight of their chains. And they are afraid of what they're going to be capable of when they are lighter, when they don't have to carry those chains around anymore. It's almost unfathomable to them so much so that they would rather stay within the comfort of the chains. And this applies universally to many different aspects of our health, many different aspects of our public structure. I guess I'll put it that way. You know what I'm talking about many aspects of our, like the health and wellness world, there's so much to it. But at the end of the day, being a heretic is being brave enough to ask questions. And then when those questions get answered, and they are contrary to what the popular belief is, or the mob think or the group mob, or the group think is the masses, you choose to take an unorthodox opinion based on you seeking the truth. You feeling the spirit within you and saying, No, this is true. I feel it down deep in my bones, my temple resonates with it. It feels at home here within me, because real truth is a puzzle piece in putting our higher self, if you want to call it that, back together, because we are so beyond our material or our physical body.
Our material world as hard as it is for us to wrap our mind around is really that just force or energy that's being vibrated at such a rate that it starts to form material, right? Like science has proved that really, there's nothing act, there's no such thing as matter. Matter doesn't really exist. All matter is made up of energy or force that is being vibrated into structure, right? Energy begets structure, and all of that. We've gone over that in earlier episodes, and episode three. And then we talked about this kind of feminine, masculine dynamic in Episode Five. Those are more foundational principles, we're going to continue to build on them. But really, when it comes down to it, all of this is just energy that is being vibrated in such a way that you can see it it feels like a material reality, but universe itself. It's mental, its spiritual. It operates under laws that go very far beyond just the physical plane.
Not Just New Age
And if you're like, Whoa, Jessica, you're absolutely losing me, like this stuff sounds absolutely mental. That's what I just said the universe is mental, but I know it can sound really woowoo and I have been accused by more than a few that I'm too New Agey, or this is New Age teachings, and I, personally, I guess I giggle I just grin at that, because New Age is really a hodgepodge of so many different things. And I feel like we lump things into the new age when we just don't agree with it, or we're afraid of it, but mostly just afraid of it. And it feels like really, oh, that's too woowoo. For me, that's too beyond what I can see materially in front of me. No, it's not true. And a lot of what is lumped into the New Age is Christian mysticism, or there's hermeticism, there's Gnosticism, there's really interesting concepts that are not quote unquote, straight satanic. And when you start to really understand the laws of certain philosophies, and you study the Christian mystics, you start to see a lot of parallels, it's actually bizarre.
And I personally don't live my life in fear, like I know when something is evil, like I know when something is not right, when something is very dark, and when something is not of Christ, and it can really easily be spotted. And so it makes me kind of giggle when people accuse me of being new age, or my favorite one is when they accuse me of teaching women how to worship themselves. And I just giggle because I don't even like really understand that. I make it very clear that most people do in some way worship themselves in the sense that they think that they can control everything. And they can treat everybody around them like pawns in their own life, puppets to make themselves more comfortable, because they're afraid of everything, they make everybody around them afraid of everything. And it's a burden that's too much for women to bear. And they have to learn to trust and surrender again, and surrender to their higher power, God. People get really like panties in a wad when I don't use the word God. And as God is a word that is made up by humans to describe something so much bigger, and that we all know, there's the something, but it's so mysterious and unknowable that we had to create certain ways of believing in order to fit it into something that our human brains can wrap around. And it's a little bit honestly, like egotistical to say, we have it right and everybody else has it wrong. As I'm almost positive that we all have it partially wrongly, we have all missed the mark, we cannot wrap our mind around God, it's impossible. We are all in this together.
So when I use the universe, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to God. But I am acknowledging that the universe is something that we do not understand. It's so much bigger than us. Is it God? No, is Jessica Ash Wellness me? No. But it is a peek into my mind, is it a full peek into my mind? Or my motives or who I am, or my beliefs or my relationships, all those dynamics? No, it doesn't tell you the whole story. But it gives you a lot. Because it is something that comes from my imagination. It's something that came out of my own mind, it was imagined within my mind. And here's an expression of that similar to how the universe is, you know, a mental creation of God because God can't change so he can't, like creation isn't apart from him. Within him, we live and move and have our being, again, hard to wrap our mind around, but we live within the mind of God.
The Laws of the Universe
And for me unlocking the secrets of the universe, if you want to call them that, helps me understand a little bit better, the One who created the universe, which brings such comfort and freedom to me, because the only one who lives outside of the laws of this universe is the one who is imagining it are creating it. Everything else is subject to these specific laws. And I find great comfort in the laws and orders that are set forth by the father and the mother, the father and the mother are really just God, but we have the father in his masculine form, kind of directing His will being inspired by mother nature inspired by the feminine. And we've already started to talk about these feminine and masculine dynamics, really what the feminine and masculine dynamics are really just the two halves of the whole principle of creation, the principle of gender, right? Genesis, the word gender is from the root of Genesis or creation or birthing. These two essences are needed for the creation process to bring something to fruition. So we have the masculine which is the being or the doing, and then we have the feminine which is the becoming. And so you have this constant dance between the two. Mother Nature inspires the feminine inspires the father or the masculine and so the masculine directs its will or its essence or all this creative force towards the feminine, and then the feminine takes it and starts to integrate the process of becoming in this kind of evolution or growth or consciousness moving back towards the masculine. And it's a forever process of going back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. And so this is one of the laws of the universe, of the orders of the universe is to create anything, we need these two essences of creation, or Genesis to come together.
And it's this kind of constant dance, we even see this down to the like electron level where we have the positive and the negative, is moving constantly around the positive or, yeah, this reflected in the sun in the moon, where the sun is more steady and constant, and it just directs its force. And then the moon, like dances mysteriously around it, and brings a lot of consciousness to creation. But all of creation relies on both the sun and the moon. And so again, this is reflected in everything that exists. And it also is reflected in the mind, which I won't talk about today. But this is not about the feminine and masculine dynamics, that's actually going to be in part two, that's just I get carried away, because it's just so cool. Like, it's really freaking cool.
So in my last episode, where I was talking about my spiritual journey, it was more of like a conglomeration of many years, I made a choice to leave the church, not really realizing that I was actually making a choice to leave the religion in a way and to almost it put me on a path to rediscovering truth, and rediscovering Christ and rediscovering God, but in a much different way. And a lot of it was just time. Time heals all wounds, when you start to create separation, there's like a period of time where you just like are waking up from a bad dream. And it takes a while. And then you start to be like, Oh, these are beliefs that were put into my head, not actually, my own beliefs lead, what do I believe? And then here's this process to it. And if you've ever studied psychological manipulation, which I don't necessarily recommend, but I did read a lot of books on how people are, in turn brainwashed, for lack of a better term, like how propaganda is used, and how brainwashing techniques are used in like cults and things like that. And it's very interesting, because a lot of the way that religions at least nowadays, operate is very cult like, and when you're a critical thinker, and you're really asking questions that mean a lot to you things like, you're telling me that before Christianity, every single person just went to hell around the world, like you're telling me a remote island in the middle of nowhere, where these people have never seen the outside world, and you're just telling me like, straight destined to hell, straight to hell, that just makes no sense. Tell me more, or like this idea of so God would just create us set us up to sin, and then “punish us” for sinning, and then punish his creation for sending and then send his only son and punish him for sending like, How is that fair? Nobody consented to that, like nobody asked for that. Or just things like that.
You're telling me all these people that God created that's that are set to be made in His image, just straight to hell, because they don't believe exactly what you believe, like, just doctrine that you have been taught, this dogma you've been taught, which we'll get into into a second, and you're telling you just all of them, just gods like I created all of them, but just like straight to hell, just burning in hell? Or like, just questions like, What is hell? What is heaven? These are questions that people should have answers to, and you start to go climb up higher and higher, and you just hear people regurgitating the same kind of talking points almost. And even if you are really high up into the theology, like you actually start to read the works of some of the theologians like the what are considered the greatest theologians of our time. And you're just like, wait, what? I've read so many books on regurgitated theology that are like written by theologians of our time. And then I've just gone back further and further to the earlier and earlier theologians, and read this stuff. And I'm just like, we want these, are the answers that you have for this mysterious and mystical thing that's going on? And you're just Nope, this is the formula.
This is the protocol. That's to me what theology is, it's it is a wet blanket or an iron fist that allows no mysticism and no philosophy and no fluidity to come into your beliefs about God. If you either believe this or you're dead, you're done. Which if you've read the New Testament, and you've actually read the words of Christ makes absolutely no sense. It is so mind boggling because you're like, I am reading the words of the supposed Christ that you worship. And it is directly contrary to what you are saying to me and what you are telling me you believe. I cannot wrap my mind around it because there's no clarity to hear, I'm getting more and more confused than ever. And this is why I had to trust my gut. And this is why I called those episodes where I was talking about this. I absolutely had to trust my gut. This was a gut instinct all the way.
And it took me a couple of years. I really didn't honestly want anything to do with it for a while. And I don't feel bad about that at all. I think that was absolutely necessary for healing. Like sometimes healing is just removing yourself from the environment. And there's a healing that takes place. That's just you. It's unmatched, and only time can heal those wounds because you start to recognize the world around you, reoriented yourself with your body, you begin to trust yourself again, because you're always told like your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked who can know it? Okay, thank you, keep gaslighting me and telling me that I don't know what to believe. Even though I have the Holy Spirit. Like it's very confusing. And I think it can take a while to get back to that point where you are able to really search scripture and search for truth with your heart, your soul and your mind. And not actually get that confused with doctrine or dogma that you have been taught theologies, you have been taught man made doctrines. And so we're gonna have to do a little history deep dive.
A Historical Deep Dive
I don't know if you guys like when I do that or not. In my spiritual journey episode, I did touch on the fact that I had pretty recently discovered some interesting information about the Magi, or the Three Kings of Orient are, who came to visit Jesus because that was started to be my question is like, who taught Jesus what he knew, obviously, he wasn't reading scriptures, like people will say, Oh, he just read the Torah. But the stuff that he says is not in the Torah, I've read the Torah, like it's not the same. So the God in the Old Testament does not sound like this God or His father that Jesus is talking about, like Jesus is talking about this, like this coming kingdom and love and all these things that if you're just taking them very literally, you're going to really miss a lot. At the time of recording that last episode, I was already going down the rabbit hole of who were these Magi. Some people believe them to be ancient Persian, or Zoroastrian, which was an interesting, monotheistic religion that's very similar to Christianity and has a very similar message. And then it led me more to some of the ancient Egyptian teachings, and how a lot of what he was saying is very similar to hermeticism. There's a lot of mysticism in it. And very fascinating stuff.
Because there did come a time where I was like, I am hungry for the truth. And I'm no longer free to seek it. I'll seek it out. Like I'm hungry. I start to reread the Bible, but I started to go directly to your original language. So I use Bible bub. And just I had memorized a lot of Scripture growing up, I did a wanna, if you've ever heard of that, that's very fringe, and niche, Christian homeschool, but they pretty much like you pretty much memorized, like so many Bible scriptures from when you are young. And I think I started when I was like in first grade, or second grade, all the way up until like, almost your senior year of high school, and you memorize so much scripture, and it sounds crazy. And I do think it's a little bit crazy to incentivize children to memorize Scripture by giving them candy. And isn't like jewel crowns and their little, you have to wear these like little vests, and you have these little like plastic crowns that you put on. And you get little jewels in your crowd. Now let me think about it. It is does sound crazy, especially if you've never heard of it before. You're like, wow, that is wacky. And it is It's wacky.
But I am so thankful for it now because I've had all these scriptures memorized, but their meaning was always very confusing to me, because I would never, I would think about them and really ruminate on them. I'd be like, what does that mean? What does that mean? I would ask all these people, and they don't, they have just very surface level understanding of things. And I'm like, that doesn't really feel like it means that but okay, and so when you go start to go back to scripture on your own it is almost like this fun thing. And it took a long time for me to be excited about it, but took me more than five years. For five years, I was looking in other places. And I was finding so many interesting things that I would have never been exposed to or known I would have been afraid of before. And I begin to reread the scriptures this time and I read the Apocrypha, and I start to read some of the excluded books. I start to really read with a more objective mind like this idea of like really just lead me. I don't have a bunch of people's opinions, and people's outside information and theologies bouncing around in my head anymore. I've been able to really separate myself from those. And time was the only thing that kind of healed that.
And what I started to really realize as I reread the scriptures, I'm going straight to the original language, especially when I was having a hard time understanding something I use Bible Bub and Bible have is really nice, because you can just type in any verse that you're working on reading. And you can go straight to the Hebrew or the Greek depending on of course, like Old Testament, written in Hebrew, New Testament, written in Greek. And it just it's very helpful because a lot of the English translations are translated in a very weird way. Like, that does not mean that, how was that translated into that, there's a lot lost there. And so you do find that a lot gets lost. And I more did that like for fun, you know, not saying that's the right way to go. But you just start to rediscover so many truths within the word of Jesus.
And for me, I started to realize very quickly, that what I had learned about Christ was just like a period on a page, let's just put it that way. The Christ that people are talking about is not who Christ was. And so you start to really realize that Jesus talked in parables that were so multi layered. And there's a lot of mysticism that gets lost there, when you're just looking at things straight through the blanket of theology. And theology without philosophy is flat. So I started to become very curious about what did Jesus study before he started his quote, unquote, what's called his ministry between the time of him being born, and 30 years old. That's a long time, that's a lot to learn. Where did he go? What did he learn, like you only really read the one time at least within the canon of Scripture, that he, he went into the synagogues as a young boy, and he owned these priests like these Jewish priests and Pharisees.
He was just as knowledgeable if not even more knowledgeable in what they had to talk about as a young boy. And so obviously, that shows us that he was learning something from someone, somewhere. So what was it that he was learning around the same time as well, I started to really dig into the history of just where did these kind of doctrines and beliefs come from. And I had at the same time and listening to a guy, I love YouTube, like just you can learn so much. If you're just willing to sit there and listen to long form content. There's so much truth there. I feel like my YouTube feed just like all of a sudden, something will pop up. I had been praying about it for weeks, and it's just there it is perfect, perfect timing like exactly when I needed it. Let's watch today right now. And so I had discovered randomly this guy Kingdom in cContext. And he is interesting, sometimes when you discover certain things, it's just like a stepping stone. It's just you get this one nugget of truth that you needed to get the confidence to move on to something else, like you don't believe everything that person believes. You don't feel like everything that they're talking about is truth. But there's a nugget within what they're teaching that you're just like that is just unlocked something that I needed, like I needed that little nugget. And so he specifically does not believe in Trinitarian doctrine. And that's if you're familiar with the church, like if you don't believe in the Trinity, that Jesus is equal to God, like you are, you're not saved. That's pretty much what people that believe in Trinitarian doctrine believe, like, you have to believe that in order to be saved, and it was interesting, because I was just curious about both sides.
I love watching debates, and you can usually tell a lot by a debate and it goes beyond just what the information is being shared. It's also like how somebody acts during the debate if they go for personal attack, so their argument is very weak. Their belief system is very weak. And I would watch these debates over and over again. And the people that were defending Trinitarian doctrine had nothing, like very weak arguments. And they were so mean like, towards the end, they just knew they had nothing. And they kept just lashing out, like lashing out. And it was almost painful to watch. And the guy the Kingdom in Context channel, I think his name is Shawn, very kind, like always referring to these guys, as Brother, we're just doing this for good fun. We're just we both believe in the same God, like we're both we both are after the same thing. And these other men in these debates would say, they would disagree, they would, they would treat him as if he was unsaved. Like he was a speck of gum on their shoe. And that to me was enough to say, when somebody behaves that way, behavior is always a language and a message. And when someone behaves that way, it tells you everything about what they believe, is obviously not leading to behavior that is aligned with Christ. So what's going on there?
Very simply, these people are completely devoid of love. They're incapable of, of loving somebody else, because they clearly have something that they don't like about themselves, or oftentimes human behavior isn't near. But that is what turned me on to digging deep into the church's history, because I'm listening to this stuff. And I'm like, Where does this doctrine come from? And one of the really important points that was brought up is that this is a doctrine that was established by a council of men at the Council of Nicaea, in Constantinople, that by the Emperor Constantine, and this was held in high believe, don't quote me on it, I think it was 325 ad, or 375. And supposedly, Jesus ascended to heaven at 33 ad, then there's this 300 ish year span in between, when Jesus sends and like his followers, you think of the ministry of Christ, he met thousands and thousands and thousands of people, he performed many miracles, signs and wonders, you're telling me that nobody wrote this stuff down. Grandma didn't tell grandkids like, hey, yeah, Jesus healed my hand of leprosy. You're telling me that nobody's talking about this. And there's just there's just these books, and these are the only books that are divinely inspired and everything else is not divinely inspired. Like nothing else is divinely inspired. Where did that Where did all that stuff go? Because there are people that had first hand accounts, there's people that met Jesus, there's people that were healed by Jesus, where did those people go?
Well, you start to look at history, you start to realize really quickly, oh, a lot of them died horrible deaths from early 33 ad all the way up until the Council of Nicaea, that the Roman Empire is mostly, with exceptions, there's periods of time where there are certain people that are considered I think Christian sympathizers was the word. But for the most part, the Roman Empire really persecuted and murdered Christians pretty hard, especially in certain regions, like regions of like Northern Africa. And certain areas, like people were put to death in horrible ways. And you start to realize, when you start to study this, that a lot of the early Christians were very mystic, like they would be considered Christian mystics like this, the teachings of the time were mystic. And these are the Roman Empire was trying to take away their books, specifically their written word, and burning it. And these people were literally being put to death for protecting these works. These scriptures, these written down accounts, what were they trying to burn? Of course, we should be asking that question, what was being burned? Who was being killed? And why so violently? Right?
Because it was a threat, it was spreading so quickly to millions and millions of people so quickly. So what was this good news that people were just like? Yes, yes. I'm sorry. But it wasn't like you're a sinner, and you're going to hell, if you don't believe what I believe. I'm sorry. Just it wasn't that. So you see this, like very just brutal, early history for a couple of hundred years, and just Emperor after emperor and leader after leader within the Roman Empire is coming over these regions. And just some of them are just merciless, right, just horrible things happening. And you see all of these different belief systems, these more mystical kind of belief systems coming out of Christ's teachings, because Christ's teachings are incredibly complex, like they're multi layered, every time you read them, as you gain wisdom and knowledge and understanding, like they just become deeper and deeper. And then all of a sudden you see this turn where the Nicene Council comes together and starts to establish doctrine.
And when you look at what was actually happening was there are many church leaders that had been killed, for lack of a better word. And then you see this council is very exclusive. They actually lock the doors and lock certain church leaders out. They only allowed a very select few. But keep in mind that this was a Council put on by Constantine, which is often referred to as a Christian emperor because Constantinople is considered like one of the first Christian empires but Constantine himself was not a Christian, he still follow up, he worship the old gods. And the only reason he's referred to as a Christian is because he, quote unquote, converted on his deathbed. But if you really look at the life of Constantine, like, he was not necessarily someone who believed or walked the walk. And so after this, after the Nicene Creed is declared, and this council comes together, and they create this religion, these doctrines and creeds and dogmas and they say, Okay, this is, this is orthodox, and this is unorthodox. If you believe this, it's orthodox. And if you do not believe this is unorthodox, it's it's heresy, and you will be declared a heretic. And pretty quickly after that, heads started flying. People that are being declared heretics for any type of mysticism, Gnosticism, Marcionism, there's, I think, eight official heresies declared by the church.
And over the centuries, Inquisition after Inquisition, look into who was being killed and what they believed who was being declared heretics, or it's the modern day witch hunt, people were also being declared as witches, women, specifically, but men were being accused of witchcraft as well. There was a huge amount of people that died, and were murdered in grotesque ways for believing in anything different than what was considered orthodox. It's very weird. And that's not Christianity. Sorry, that's something different. That is something parading as something else. And I of course, follow the breadcrumbs, whoever is the most threatening gets their metaphorical head chopped off gets the metaphorical crucify or the very real crucified, what is so scary that somebody is teaching that they need to be put to death for it, like I want to know, reveal me those secrets.
Questioning the Differences in the God of the Old and New Testament
So what did I do last where I went, I started to study what these people were being killed for. And man, oh, man, you should do the same. Now I'm just going to share one of these viewpoints and share one of these things that I was already feeling very confused about for a very long time. And so for me, just starting to look into this stuff brought so much clarity. The first thing was I've read the Bible many times. And I've always been confused with the Old Testament versus the New Testament, the God that Jesus talks about, as his father seems very different in temperament. There's some actual clear discrepancies between the two. And I also got very confused about Jesus's words, in John 8, where he says, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come from myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand my speech, because you are not able to listen to my word you are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do? He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.”
And so I started to wonder why people were being put to death for believing that the God of the Old Testament was not the same God that Jesus was talking about, like his father. And that's what Gnosticism really is. Like, most Gnostics believed that, and why would they be put to death for it? That's so weird. And then all of a sudden, I'm on YouTube. Like I said, I swear my prayers get answered. There is this random video from a guy named David Vokes that talks about this very topic, and I'll link it in the show notes if you're interested in it. But it answered a lot of questions for me because I just had always really wondered, like I couldn't reconcile the very bloodthirsty nature of the Old Testament with the the God that Jesus talks about. His father seems so different, it just makes no sense. And now I realized the he's coming to say that is not of his father. What you are believing is not of my father. My father doesn't teach that, my father teaches a message of love. This is very different than what you believe like you guys believe this, because this is all but I'm coming here and I'm telling you something new. I'm saving you from this law, like you're not under this law. This is, You are under my father's law. And all you have to do is knock on the door and ask right? In Matthew 7, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks a door will be open. And I just always struggled with the fact that Jesus promises us in Matthew 11 that you come to him all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And dude, doesn't it feel like the opposite right now within Christianity?
It's weird. Like Jesus is literally saying things like “judge not that you will not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged.” Like you're literally going to be judged in the same way that you judge others. And with that measure you use it will be measured back to you. Where's the disconnect, or Love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind with all your strength, this is the first commandment. And then the second is you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Jesus's own words literally says no other commandment greater than these. And so as I started to learn this, I start to really understand what Jesus was saying when he says, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the will of my Father in heaven, Many will say to me, Lord, have we not done all this stuff prophesied in your name, cast out demons, done many wonders? And Jesus says, I'm going to declare to them, I never knew you depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness. He's not talking about the law in the Old Testament. He's talking about God's law, the law he came to share, and no one's listening. He says, “You do not have the ears to listen to me.” Jesus, the master of disses, the master of burns, he is my master. I study him because I'm just like, You are my master, like dude, burn. Got em there.
Like I read the stuff. And I start to realize, Wow, he came hard at these people. Like I think about Matthew 23, where he is talking about the Pharisees and how they're just so hypocritical. And it says, “For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers,” oh, burn. And He literally says over and over again, like for one is your teacher and that is the Christ right him and you are all brethren. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled. They got some of these people, I'm trying not to be rude or anything, but I get so much relief, knowing that some of these people are going to be humbled and thinking about how Jesus says, like for you Who shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. He says, “Woe to you, you hypocrites, for you devour widows, houses, and for free tents make long prayers, therefore, you will receive an even greater condemnation.” Burns, I don't know, at least the Christians that I'm meeting, and I'm talking to, they do not behave and operate like they're under a different law, they do not read Jesus's words they do not have the ears to hear and they do not have the ability to be responsible with the word of truth, because when you remove mysticism, beauty, feminine aspects from God, and you make it all about structure and dogma and doctrine and this or that, or black or white, and you say, truth is absolute, it cannot grow it cannot expand this is what it is, you miss the mark, you cannot hear you do not have the ears to hear, you do not have them.
Christian Mysticism & RESOURCES
And I in all of this digging and discovery this has been pretty much since a little bit before I recorded that last episode. I now it's been I think almost like eight months now this has been the journey that I have been discovering is just Oh, easy enough. Like I am a Christian mystic. Like I believe in the mystical aspects of God, and I drink it in, I cannot get enough of it. I am a glutton for it truly, it fills me and nourishes me studying the heretics studying the early church what they believe even reading, like, for example, like St. Irenaeus, he’s celebrated in the Orthodox Church and he wrote this book in the early days of Christianity when there was starting to become a quote unquote problem of people bringing philosophy into the theology. And he literally wrote a book, I did not make this stuff up like this is stuff that I'm just like, this is this reminds me of modern day where they were having a problem with these, these heretics and so Irenaeus comes in. And this was even earlier than the Council of Nicaea, like he lived from 140 to 202. Oh, and he literally wrote a five part series of books called against all heresies. He, especially had this problem with this guy, Valentinian. And he wrote a book against the Valentinian. And he just, he was like, had a bone to pick.
And so I actually started reading some of his work. And, man, he is just snooze inducing, but also so triggered. His book was literally called the “Destruction and Overthrow of False Knowledge.” To me, it just reminded me of like modern times where it's like, it's just the stuff that comes out publicly like that. It's the same thing. It's just Oh, my gosh, anything. That's all it's Christian, do whatever you can to crush it. misinformation, misinformation. And it's actually no, it's just unorthodox. It's not familiar to you. And you don't know the whole story. Like, why don't you just take a moment and think critically about it and really, actually, listen to understand, don't just listen to here and rebuttal, because one is not going to get you anywhere. And really, I do think that ignorance is one thing, like being truly ignorant and just not knowing that's one thing, but being willfully ignorant, having a truth presented to you. And because it triggers you in sexual way, or it just it triggers your belief system in such a way or pushes you up against your programming in such a way that's just so uncomfortable. You can't handle it, like you almost have a conniption, that should be a message to you.
Even if you're not ready to learn it yet or hear it yet. That's fine. We all are in different places. But instead of just like blatantly being like that's false, or that's satanic, or that's something that, putting a label on it, because it makes you so uncomfortable. Why don't we just sit with it for a second? Or come back to it, put a pin in it? It's interesting. So the equivalent to me of people accusing me of being new age, it's first of all, what does that really mean? Do you even know that? Or is it just a lump that you put everything that you don't believe or you don't believe is quote unquote, biblical into? It's almost the equivalent to me as of what people do now try to crucify people by calling them a conspiracy theorist. I look at it as pattern observationalists, like, just look at patterns and like you notice them. That's all. It doesn't take much. But I think for a lot of people, it's like, there's many layered, right? If I believe this, about this, and I actually have the eyes to see in the ears to hear this. What does this mean for my life? What does this mean for me? What does this mean for all these other things down the line.
I think for a lot of people, they just don't have the energy, right? This is why physical energy is so important. This is why having good metabolic function, being nourished, having the right minerals, sharpening your mind and having control over your mind, true control, true mastery of your mind is so important. Because most people don't have that these days. And because of how we are designed as humans, we do tend to look at what other people are doing and follow the crowd and we can be very much like sheep. And that does not ever work in our best interest. Right? It's a seed of, that's called learned helplessness that involves serotonin. And it involves a lot of different chemicals, where it really makes us think that, yeah, we know it's probably different, but I just literally don't have the energy to even think about it right now, or care, less like these things matter. That's why I'm so passionate about people's physical health and feeling better, because we have to be able to feel or have a certain amount of energy in order to move up or expand and start to have a true mastery over our mind.
And so many of you asked me for resources and I think resources, the way that I approach life, and I approach studying and I approach, learning truth and wisdom is really inviting, so I asked questions of the universe or God because everything is God, everything around me is within God. It's again, hard to wrap your mind around but within Him we live and move and have our being. We can rest within the mind of God. And his mind is all things. His mind is what has created all things. His mind is what has put everything around us into motion, including myself. I live within the mind of God, I am an imagination of this creator, this creative force, this infinite mind, right, that I cannot comprehend. And so as long as I pose the question, it will be answered. Jesus said something as simple as just knock and the door will be opened. And we can move through life with that peace of ask the question and you will receive the answer in due time.
But this is why it's so important for us to be in our feminine energy or understand be, I don't even like the term “in your feminine energy” but just understanding that the creative process or the process of all things requires the masculine, the will to do the action, the being, but it also requires the becoming. You have to leave space, you have to hold space for creation to come to fruition. And that is how I also approach my mind. This is how I approach research. This is how I approach truth. I asked for the answer. And I didn't, it's not like I just sit back and say, I'm not doing anything anymore. It'll come to me when it comes to me, I use my brain because I have a brain, I've been given one. And I start to think, what am I trying to really figure out? Like is, am I actually just want somebody to answer that question for me? Or do I want to know the why behind things.
And so this is why I'm often looking to history for context. And I'm looking to the languages for context. And I go back to the original languages. And I want to know, why are people saying this, not just oh, okay. That's what we all believe in. Cool, let's go on our merry way. And I do this with resources too, like I am led to random books, random videos all the time. And I would have never been able to seek those out or search them. But I was seeking something out. And I don't know, the algorithm brought it to me, obviously, something bigger than the algorithm brought it to me, right, everything around you is for you, if you see it that way, but you get to create your own reality that is the gift of living within the mind of God. That's what it means to be made in His image. We are creators, we do not create from nothing, though only God can create from nothing, we do not create from nothing, we are finite, he is infinite. But we do experience certain laws that are used within the whole universe on this physical plane. And we can use them accordingly. We can use them how we want to use them. And we can use them for a lot of good. And so it's important to learn them and not be afraid of them.
Resources wise, I feel like I have read resources that I think a lot of minds are probably not ready yet for. But I do think that just starting somewhere and starting to read something is a good idea. The Christian Mystics are a great place to start. I haven't read it yet personally. But I've heard great things about Heather Hamilton's new book “Returning to Eden.” And she talks about, I think, a similar journey, I've heard that she leaves religion and that she finds her way back to the Christian mysticism. And so that's on my list to read. I've heard some great things about it. I've also heard some great things about Marcus Borgs book, The God We Never Knew. I've read a little bit of his work, but I haven't read that specific book. But I've heard it is really great as well. And just remember that when you have been conditioned to believe that you have to be told what to think about God, right? You have to be told doctrine or dogma, because you need a mediator between you and God, you are not capable, you little peon of understanding anything, we're going to create this doctrine or dogma, this formula for you that you can follow, so that you know what to believe about God. And of course, there can be some beautiful rituals, some amazing spiritual experiences, I'm not discounting the fact that we can find God through religion, doctrines and dogmas can be helpful for a lot of people.
But for most people, they are stifling, and they do not allow people to expand beyond a very limited mindset. Because the universe is so mental in nature, when your mind is controlled, to be very rigid and boxed in, you have a very difficult time exercising anywhere outside of that box, when you've been trained that you can only go this far and your God is in this box. And you if you go outside of the box, you're gonna die, you're gonna go to hell, you train your brain to not ask the questions, not go to the edge of the box not to push to the edge because you feel like it's a life or death situation, you truly believe that it's going to lead on a path to your destruction. And it makes me so incredibly sad that people believe that about themselves. And they also believe that about other people. It's so unfortunate because it is not a message that Jesus came to share. If that's what you believe the gospel is, you have missed the mark, you need to read it again. And again, and again and again and ask and ask and ask and ask until you understand, ask for God to give you the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Because you are not hearing and you are living your life under a law that does not exist and you are living your life in chains. When your chains have been unlocked. They're already unlocked. You literally all you have to do is just get up. But stop being so afraid of what it's going to feel like when you're free and running to what makes you feel safe. That's not being brave. And so I know it's scary, but be brave. You have got this, and we all need to go on our journey right? There's no perfect place to be.
We're all in this journey together, gathered, growing in knowledge, growing in wisdom, growing and understanding, right? We're all moving on a path of quote, unquote, salvation. And we all have many lessons to learn within the mind of God. And it's not about other people's journeys. And it's not about what other people are going through. You don't have to make their journey into yours, you are on your own path. Enjoy it, love it, it's fun. It can be fun. It's enjoyable to ask questions and discover truths and find hidden nuggets that are special secrets between you and God, that only you within your experience and your perspective and what you've been through, and the lessons you've learned, have the eyes to see, it is fun, it is a gift. It is so incredibly beautiful. Of course, it's hard. Sure, because we all know how to really truly appreciate something, unless we've been through the pain and the suffering to get there, right, it like almost opens our eyes to see something that we didn't see before. So it can be difficult. Sure, but you do get something out of it, you get wisdom you learned. And that seems to be something that really triggers people these days, it's we all have to go through certain things to learn certain things. Discomfort helps us master our mind. And that is a difficult thing to accept. But I think if we valued it more, the world would be very different, it would be a really different place.
So if you're a heretic, welcome. This applies more than just our belief systems. It goes into health, it goes into how we choose to live our lives, what decisions we make, what relationships we have, where we live, what we do with our life, there's so many ways that it can just leak into everything. And it's okay to question things. Even if it feels like everybody else around you believes the same thing. And you just have a little tickle in your stomach where you're like, This is not not sitting right with me, there's something off here, you can trust it. You can trust it, have an appetite for truth, you have nothing to fear. So the pillar of feminine purity, which I mentioned earlier, and I didn't really, I think conclude that thought is really just the ability to be devoted to the truth, to be devoted to that truth that's deep within your bones. And no matter how afraid we are to let go of things or let them be burned up by the fire or washed away and cleansed in the water, which are metaphorical, those given many layers of meaning.
We are devoted to truth, the truth of who we really are and who we were made to be, who we were intricately crafted to be, the truth of how God sees you is the only truth. There is no other truth that no matter who screams crucify her, or burn her at the stake, you do not let it go. You let the lies burn away. And I cannot explain to you unless you have felt it, how light you will feel. You feel as if you can fly. So keep seeking, keep searching. This is just part one of our Heresy Heals series. Next week, we're going to talk about a little bit more of some of the things that I've learned since I originally talked about feminine and masculine energetics. I am always working on this stuff. I'm working on some really interesting things in the background, I'm creating something I'm incredibly proud of right now, something that just does not exist, it just simply does not exist. It's an idea that's being really brought into fruition. And I'm really honored that I get to be a part of it, you can already see the collective shifting, like things are moving in that direction. But I think we're stumbling in the dark a lot, especially around the feminine and masculine energetics, and we're missing the mark a lot. I feel like I have missed the mark. In some ways. I'm human. And so that's why I continue to develop this stuff.
Next week's part of this series is going to really talk about the heretical view of how getting into your feminine energy is actually impossible. And you'll understand more next week, but I've just been feeling like so many women have been quote unquote, trying to get into their feminine energy and they're finding themselves increasingly frustrated and increasingly stressed out. And they're constantly questioning every move they make. And that is not what this teaching is about at all. And so I'm hoping this offers a lot of clarity and freedom when we dive into it next week. But this was a foundation that we had to lay in order to get there. Because this principle, the principle of the masculine and feminine parts of creation, the two halves of the whole, is one of the laws of the universe. And so I really wanted to lay this foundation before we jumped into that, and so I will see you next week.
Episode Links
In this episode, I mentioned:
Your Questions - https://airtable.com/appoicByQy3UFoSXs/shrXwD7wQFJQr68Nn
Books I Mentioned:
* The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg:https://amzn.to/3KIpmiQ
Disclaimer: With anything, think for yourself. I do not endorse these people's channels or am aware of all their beliefs, however, I found the video and channel helpful in connecting some dots and acting as "stepping stones" to point me in the right direction in my own research.
Trinitarian Doctrine:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKfUExxo5_c
OT God Vs. NT God:https://youtu.be/3cBEhZFziGU?si=PCMEBBoYs8gsXLuO
Discount Codes from Our Sponsors:
Earthrunners
NOURISHED for 10% off (until the end of 2024)
*This is an affiliate link. We may receive a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on one of these links.
Connect with Jessica:
Have Sunday tea with me! Sign-up for my Sunday newsletter where I share what’s on my brain from the nutritional to spiritual: https://www.jessicaashwellness.com/email-subscribe.
Join the Fully Nourished community! Follow me @jessicaashwellness on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicaashwellness/
Join Nourished Circle: https://programs.jessicaashwellness.com/nourished-circle