Stop Rehearsing Disaster. Start Expecting Miracles.

What if the life you're afraid of isn't the life you're actually living?

Have you ever turned a delayed text into rejection, a difficult conversation into the end of a relationship, a low bank account into a lifetime of scarcity, or a new ache into the worst-case scenario?

You're not alone.

In this episode of Healing Her Halo, we're exploring how trauma, anxiety, and past experiences can train our minds to rehearse imagined disasters before reality has a chance to unfold—and how healing invites us to do something radically different: expect miracles instead.

Through personal stories, practical mindset shifts, neuroscience, and faith-filled encouragement, Patience shares how one simple question changed everything:

"What if I'm already living my answered prayers?"

If your mind is powerful enough to anticipate rejection, scarcity, failure, or loss, it is also powerful enough to anticipate healing, provision, love, opportunity, and joy.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• 🤎 Why your brain naturally predicts threats
• 🤎 How to separate facts from fear
• 🤎 A simple practice to interrupt anxious thinking
• 🤎 How to replace scarcity with expectancy
• 🤎 Why your imagination may be one of God's greatest gifts when it's rooted in hope instead of fear

Maybe the goal isn't to stop imagining.

Maybe the goal is to imagine differently.

Because the same mind that rehearsed disaster can learn to rehearse miracles.

And that might be where healing begins.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Healing Her Halo, a women empowerment platform for women who've experienced trauma and the struggles of mental health. This is a safe space to gain guidance on how to navigate through the storms of life and how to stay present in the light when the sun shines again. Be sure to download, share, and subscribe so you can help heal another woman's halo. Now here's your host, Patience Murray.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Have you ever noticed how quickly your mind can turn one moment into an entire story? A delayed text becomes rejection. A change in tone becomes conflict. A ring on the counter becomes the end of a marriage. A bank account becomes proof you'll never have enough. And maybe even the pain in your body becomes certain disaster. Nothing has actually happened, but somehow your body is already grieving, your heart is already racing, and your mind is already preparing for loss. And today I want to ask you the same question. I believe God is asking each and every one of us. Who told you that? Welcome to Healing or Halo, the space where we stop hiding the parts of ourselves that have been hurt and start remembering the women who God created us to be. And today we're talking about something that has quietly influenced almost every area of my life. Not trauma, not anxiety, not fear, but the stories. The stories my wounds write. Before my now get the chance to speak fully. And maybe you can relate to that. So this isn't coming from out of nowhere. It's coming from a space of really how our brains can jump to conclusions. And maybe if you've ever been there, you've seen something or you thought, oh well, it actually it's it's a it's a funny thing, but sometimes, you know, we think if we feel a certain way, that that's just the way that it is. Oh, from life experience I can tell you that sometimes that is not the case. We can look at a situation based on how we're feeling, or based on what our insecurities are, or based on what our upbringing is, or based on how our week transpired, and create meaning from that without really looking at the facts. And today, I want to encourage every single one of you listening today to focus on the facts, especially when your nervous system starts predicting a threat that isn't even there. So of course we know our brains, they love us and they just want to protect us, they want to keep us safe. But sometimes the trauma that we're carrying in our body, which is the the memories that aren't leaving, right? It's the memories that are stored in our cells, our very being. And these memories may not be the most pleasant ones, and it's information that the brain is using to create the state that we're in. It's how our body shows up in a moment when we feel triggered, when we feel like we're being attacked, and it's just the way that we're perceiving the situation, which is the craziest thing, but our perception really is painting the picture for the kind of life we are positioning ourselves in, and it may not even be the truth, it may not even be the truth. So I'm gonna stop screwing around the issue here. So let's just say I have a friend. I have a friend, and this friend, she saw a ring sitting on the wedding uh the counter, not wedding counter, saw a ring sitting on a counter. Let's just say that it's a wedding ring, her husband's wedding band. Now, looking at that ring based on a position of it in front of a family photo, in front of flowers, what if that friend thought, oh my god, my husband is leaving me? Now, no truth this is based in. It's just all assumption. It's all being assumed based on the position of the photo, based on the position of the ring, based on what happened earlier that week or earlier that day. But I say this because this is reality for most of us. We'll look at something small and we'll jump to the largest conclusion. And sometimes we're doing it unconsciously and we don't even realize it. But this is called threat prediction. So this is actually the brain scanning a scenario and actually thinking the worst, actually predicting a threat that's not even there. And your emotions start responding to a situation that didn't even happen. Now, imagine this friend confronting her husband, assuming the worst. Let's say she was yelling and screaming, and the husband has no idea what she's talking about, or the husband is so hurt and disappointed that he just walks out the door. Now, imagine another scenario where the friend walks over to her husband and just asks, Honey, why is your ring on the counter? And what if the husband actually says, Well, I needed to take it off because I was cleaning and I didn't want the chemicals to get under my band. Now, let's say the second scenario is true and it actually happened. Now, what would it have looked like if that friend went over to her husband accusing him of all these things simply because she had assumed and stuff just asking? But how many of us do this? How many of us tell ourselves a story that's not even true and we don't even fact-check it? And we don't even put the thoughts to the fire and ask, is that even the truth? But this is the world that we're living in today, even on social media, we're taking everything, the headlines, as truth, and we're not digging deeper, we're not asking the questions, and that that brings us into a really dangerous world where no one's taking a pause to think and really ask to see if something's true. Now, I bring this up because it leads me to another thought. What if you're in the middle of a situation like this friend, right? Where you're looking at something and you're trying to figure out if it's the worst thing that's about to happen, or if it's just something ordinary and maybe I'm having a moment, right? Now, this is called the healing or halo method, right? So, step number one is to name the trigger. What's the trigger in the scenario with the friend? The trigger is she saw the ring. That's the trigger. The ring being on the counter is a trigger. Now, that doesn't mean automatically that her husband is leaving her, but in that situation, she just needs to state whatever the facts are. What are the facts? The fact is the ring was sitting on the counter, not her husband was walking out the door. Now, step number two, name the story. Whenever the brain starts telling a story that maybe in a scenario like with the friend again, you're being a band end. Someone's walking out the door, but none of that has actually happened. So instead of you taking that in as fact, you can observe the fact that you're having the thoughts that you're having, and you can say, My brain is telling me that I'm being abandoned, right? So slow it down in the moment for yourself so you can really examine what's happening in your body and in your mind. And the only way to do that is to take some time and really question the thoughts that you're having. And you have the power to ask yourself different questions in a moment like that. So instead of thinking the absolute worst, or maybe if you're in a moment where you begin to think the absolute worst about the situation, you can ask yourself, is there another way that I can look at this? Or what if I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective? Just asking the question in the middle of feeling like you want to flip the handle or you want to jump to conclusions or you feel your body starting to make threat predictions in scenarios that really don't require that level of response. You can ask yourself a question in the middle of a moment like that to interrupt the story. Sometimes we gotta interrupt the story. Because what if you are safe? What if everything is working out for you? And what if how you're looking at the scenario is actually an overreaction? Now, this is not to condemn anyone, and it's definitely not to publicly beat up on my friend, right? But it's just to beg the question, what if we're looking at things from a perspective that's hurting us when nothing is even happening? And how much energy we're spending in imagined disastrous experiences that haven't even occurred. Now I want to empower you. So if you're someone who's relating to this and you've been there, you've done that, you've you've flipped off the handle or jumped, you know, completely off the edge at a situation only to find out that the situation was actually not what you thought, and now you have to backpedal and apologize because you you made a complete fool of yourself, right? I don't condemn you, but I want to encourage you because if your imagination can work that powerfully in the negative direction, right? Let's just say, it can work just as powerful in the positive direction, and it's about steering your brain to focus on what is gonna help you catapult your life forward. So when you are in a scenario and you realize that your brain is being a little overactive and you know it's predicting threats that aren't there, and your imagination is creating sensations and emotional responses in your body that it doesn't really require. Maybe it's a financial breakthrough that you've been praying about since the beginning of the year, maybe it's your health to turn around and it hasn't yet. You know how much faith you're gonna need to bring forth that outcome, to believe that it's already done, to ask and then believe that you've already received it. Well, the same way that your brain is working in the negative direction, you should be excited for yourself because you know that as long as you focus on whatever outcome that you are desiring, that your brain can put your body in a state where you're actually feeling the sensation and feeling the emotions of having received or experienced the thing that you're looking for, and that is the special ingredients that you actually need to bring forth something that you can't even see. So if you're doing this in the negative, imagine how powerful you could be and how quickly your life could change if you could start looking around for blessing predictions, not threat predictions, but blessing predictions. What if you can start looking around for evidence that a miracle is on the way? What if you can start looking around for evidence that you're living in your answered prayers? Or what if you can start looking around for evidence that everything is actually working out for your good? Wow, a perspective shift can save you a lifetime of heartache, assuming the worst about other people, and perhaps even yourself, because I don't believe for one minute that if you are a person that jumps to conclusions about other people that you're not also doing that to yourself. So I encourage you today to take that beautiful brain and that wonderful imagination that you have and steer it towards the positive good things that God planned beforehand for you with your name on it. Get obsessed about looking for the evidence of the good things that are already on schedule. Now, I'm so glad and so grateful that you tuned into this episode today because it's deeply, deeply needed in a world like we live in today, and how our emotions are constantly being manipulated and toyed with, with headlines and the things that we see, we're not always fact-checking some things we're just receiving and taking in as truth. But we don't have to do that with our thoughts. We get a say-so in how we're thinking, we get a say-so in what thoughts we accept. So, if you are a woman that's been in that situ a situation before and you've been in that scenario like our good friend, I want to encourage you that not only are you at a space where life is about to get really good because you're even aware of yourself jumping to conclusions or you're aware of your brain working overactively to protect you when it doesn't need to, because you can turn that switch. You can turn that switch, you have the power to redirect your focus on the promises of God. Alright. Today is a bit of a shorter one for me because this is actually the week of the 10-year anniversary of the Pulse Night Club shooting, and that's also why I'm not on camera today, because it's just been a trying week. And for those of you that follow the show, you know I talk a lot about the MVP and what it means to show up in your minimum viable push, what that looks like. And I've been honest with you all before that whenever I do audio episodes, that is my MVP because something in me didn't want to get out the bed today, or something in me didn't want to persist on through to my own dreams, right? Something in me wanted to scan my reality and look for the threats and look for the evidence to confirm all the fears that I have inside about myself and about how other people are gonna receive me in the world. But just like I tell you, to get yourself into a place where you can at least do one small action. For me, that was even recording this podcast today. Now, by the end of this, I'm feeling better, and I hope you're feeling better because just as I'm pouring into you, I was also pouring back into me. And I'm so excited to share my new book with you. Have patience, it's already done. And it's deeply personal to me and the experiences that I've had in my life, because having patience is something that I've always been reminded to have to slow down and take a pause before giving up, before losing your cool, before writing yourself off completely, especially when there's no evidence of the things that you're praying for, no evidence of the things that you're working towards. So that book is available for pre-order right now. So you giving me your feedback on the topic of these episodes, giving me the feedback on the topic of the book, that's all not only helping me shape the direction to help inspire someone else, but it's also helping me, it's helping me keep going. So when I hear from you, it's like fuel and I thank you for the ways that you've been showing up for me already. And if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast streaming platform, just leave a review. If there's something about this episode, if it's something about my vulnerability, my transparency, my truth that helped you at all, let me know. Okay. Well, as always, I hope today put a spark back in your head.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Thank you for listening. Please follow our social media at Healing Her Halo for more updates. Also, be sure to share with a friend who needs a little spark put back in her halo today.