Erasable Pens, Empty Nets, and Why Hustle Is Lying to You

What if your work could feel lighter without losing impact? 

We take a hard look at hustle culture, anxiety, and the myth that success must hurt, then contrast it with Jesus’ promise of an easy yoke and a light burden. 

We unpack how living from the parasympathetic nervous system aligns with God’s design for steady, sustainable growth.

Stephanie and I share stories that challenge logic and strengthen trust, from the fishermen who found abundance after a fruitless night to real-world moments when providential timing solved impossible scheduling problems. You’ll hear how flexible planning - holding a clear vision while writing plans in erasable ink - invites God to order our steps. 

Along the way, we explore the sphere of control to quiet spiraling thoughts, showing why directing energy toward thoughts, choices, and attitude restores agency while easing physiological stress.

When crises hit, we do what we can, then hand over the rest, trusting that God works all things toward good; even when we can’t see the full picture. The result? Calmer minds, wiser decisions, and work that moves forward without grinding our souls.

If you’re craving peace without losing progress, this conversation offers a grounded, faith-first framework for your calendar, your body, and your calling. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a lighter load, and leave a review.

Chapters

• 0:00 Framing Stress And Response
• 0:41 Faith Meets Wellness Introduction
• 1:14 Toiling With An Easy Yoke
• 2:06 Parasympathetic As God’s Design
• 3:07 From Hustle Myths To Trust
• 4:26 The Fishermen And Unexpected Provision
• 5:23 Yoked To Jesus In Daily Work
• 6:19 Plans, Flexibility, And Erasable Pens
• 8:16 Providence In Business And Timing
• 10:06 Suffering, Sovereignty, And Perspective
• 12:07 Choosing Trust During Crises
• 13:04 Spheres Of Control And Calm
• 15:05 Comfort Food, Dopamine, And Renewal
• 16:46 Fasting, Freedom, And New Lenses
• 19:22 Closing And Community Invitation

Transcript

Framing Stress And Response

SPEAKER_00 0:01

There are a lot of things going on in the world right now. And even though we're not going to talk specifically about the things that are going on in the world, we're going to talk about how we respond to those things.

Faith Meets Wellness Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:13

And and what things feed our stress and anxiety, and how God has called us to be instead. So I am excited to have this conversation. It's very timely in the world as it is today. And uh and I think the only other thing I would say is being able to stay in your parasympathetic nervous system does not mean you don't care.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Welcome to the Heart and Soul Elevation Podcast, where faith meets wellness and women learn to live aligned, spirit, mind, and body. We're your hosts, Melissa Holman and Stephanie Pasniokis.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Two Jesus-loving women, passionate about helping you steward your health without losing sight of the one who gave it to you. Around here, healing happens in community. Scripture leads the way, and science simply confirms what God designed.

Toiling With An Easy Yoke

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Let's elevate your heart and soul together. What does toiling for God really look like? Because he tells us that we shouldn't be unequally yoked. He tells us that God, you know, Jesus' yoke is easy, and his bird is light is light, and that's how we are supposed to toil. We are supposed to toil with him. Yes. It's not the toiling that we see as a society, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

We think the striving, the struggling, the hustling.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

And it has to be hard and it has to be stressful and it has to be all these things. But the scriptures say we're supposed to toil with him. And his burden is easy and his yoke is light. That's that's how our toiling is supposed to feel. It's not supposed to feel burdensome.

Parasympathetic As God’s Design

From Hustle Myths To Trust

The Fishermen And Unexpected Provision

SPEAKER_01 2:03

And I well, and then that's the thing, right? Because he created our nervous system. We're supposed to be mostly in parasympathetic. The sympathetic is for those moments where we need to fight or flight or to survive, to keep going. It's not, it's not to be permanently on. We already know a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of research has been done how to be in that sympathetic nervous system. I was just reading, you know, reading about that device. It's like this teardrop thing that you can set on your on your chest and it vibrates and there's earphones and it it has this soothing thing to activate your vagus nerve to induce parasympathetic like calm and this and that. We know a lot about it. We know that that community, we know that we know connection, we know oxytocin, we know all these things, right? And that we're supposed to be there most of the time. And I try to go back, it's like, okay, what did what did what did the what a day in a life look like for a woman? Even one in business, even one that was doing her work, right? And and getting up and doing things and and and you know, what did it look like for Mary? Uh, you know, to to be able to trust in in the Lord and and do what is set before and not not stress over it because of who by oring who by warring is gonna add one qubit to their lifespan, if depends on the translation you read, but that's my favorite because it's the one that I read as a kid. And um and yeah, we're not extending our life. In fact, we're doing quite the opposite by staying in pair in sympathetic mode. And so yet I've got this lifetime of conditioning that my brain believes that if I am going to succeed, it has to be hard. It has to be the uphill battle, it has to be, you know, or I'm not doing it right. And it's gonna fail because I'm not trying hard enough. Because the world constantly, constantly says a business is only, you know, this many percent of businesses fail in the first five years because this, and they're not doing this, and they're not doing that, and they need to do this and they need to do that, and you know, and and so yet to do all of those things sometimes, like if you're just one person, I mean, how much can you do? Again, I I I don't know how often I'm ever gonna say this, and it just comes up in my mind all the time. I think this is what God's putting in my heart for my business and for my faithpreneurship, which I love your word, is those fishermen were toiling all night long. They they are experts, they know how to find fish, they know how to find the fish, they know where they're gonna be, they know what they're doing, they know how to fish. That is their sonar was not working that night. It was not happening, and then God, you know, Jesus was like, just you know, here you are in the shallows in a place that the fish aren't supposed to be, throw the banana on the other side. It didn't make any logical sense whatsoever. And it was a bounty, a bounty. It solved lots of problems, lots of concerns, lots of worries, practical worries, not just for income, but livelihood, like eating, like their own livelihood, their own, their own ability to keep the roof over their heads.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Well, and this comes back to the yoke, right? This comes back to the yoke that we are asked to take. We are asked to take the yoke that is attached to Jesus. God does not command it, he doesn't cajole us to do it. He's a gentleman. He says, here, take my yoke. It's easy and it's light. Why? Why is it easy and it light and light? Because he's already done all the work. He has already done all the work, all we have to do is take it and put it on. That's it. And that's where that's where the faith part of being in this faithpreneurship comes in. Right. And I mean, and and it doesn't make any logical sense. It doesn't make a bit of logical sense.

Plans, Flexibility, And Erasable Pens

SPEAKER_01 6:15

There's still work to do. There's still things that you have to do. I mean, it's not gonna do itself.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

We you know it's not going to do itself, but the thing is, when I have when I am yoked with Jesus and I am following literally where he is leading me, because that's what the yoke is for. The yoke gets attached to the older oxen, the one that knows the path, and the younger ox just kind of follows, just kind of does what he does. And it's not it's it's not a burden because the yoke actually never touches my neck. Yeah, but uh yeah, it's fully on him. It is fully on him. All I have to do is go where he leads. So whether that's sitting here creating a program, sitting here creating content, sitting here working with clients, whatever it is that he's asked me to do that day. That's what I do. Or, or I have to set my business aside because my family needs me that day. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Or, or you know what? Or your body is sending signals that say, uh, you need to rest.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah, you need to rest.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

You need you need to, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

And logically, it doesn't make any sense because big business tells you that's not how it works. Yep. Million dollar coaches tell you that's not how it works.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, and that you have to have everything planned out, scheduled ahead of time.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Like next 90 days.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

That can be helpful. It you know, it's good to have a vision, it's good to have an idea of where you want to go. And this is, and we get to say, Lord, this is my plan. This is my path, these are my plans. But these are my give it to you. These are my thoughts. Please establish the plan according to your will. Uh, take the things off the list that shouldn't be there, add the things that should be there. Just help me see your guidance and trust.

Providence In Business And Timing

SPEAKER_00 8:08

You know, I can't tell you how many write down the goal in pen, right? This is the goal, this is where I want to be. But I write down all of my plans in erasable pen because plans change. The goal may the goal may stay, but the plans change. I have to be flexible because God's plan does is not my plan. My plan needs to align with God's plan, whatever that is. So erasable pen is my friend.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

I might have to get some of those. I usually just have a lot of scratch outs in my plate.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Um, it's they're called friction f R I X I O N. I am not getting paid to say that, but it is a it is an erasable pen and it's through friction that it erases. It's not a traditional eraser where you get the rubber. It's not a rubber eraser. It is literally friction that erases the pen. It's wonderful. I love these things, and they come in all different colors. Like I get the multi-pack that has like eight different colors in it.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Very nice. It also sounds like a kind of gift I have to get my my uh daughter. She'll love them.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

They're wonderful. Love them.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

So uh erasable pen, because you know, I'm not always gonna be plowing the same row. God's gonna have me plow a different row. It just depends on the day.

Suffering, Sovereignty, And Perspective

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Um, then again, this is another place where my father's spirit, my my earthly father's spiritual mentorship. Um I uh it comes in because he isn't a business owner. He's been a business owner for forever at this point. Um, and he's 78 and he's still going strong. It's a solo business, a physical job. Um, it's amazing. But I he has hundreds, hundreds of stories where he's got an impossible day scheduled and God does things and he could be nervous, like, oh, I'm supposed to be here, I'm gonna be late, this and that happened. But I was in a conversation that was clearly the one that was supposed to happen, and all of a sudden that person calls and says, they're running 15 minutes late. He says, Don't worry, get there when you get there. I'm gonna be there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's all, you know, it's just all of a sudden it all works out. And then there have been times where he looks at a few months' worth of work and says and and sees how much he did and how many houses he was at, and says, This isn't physically possible. I wasn't able to do this when I was 50. I'm 78. How did this even happen? How did I get that? How did that happen? And it was only God. Yeah. Only God. And um, and every day he prays, This is this is the schedule, this is what I've put in front of me for the day. Order my steps. Order my steps, order. Establish your plan in my life. And I have had a couple of weeks ago, um, I had a lot of people, you know, um scheduled, some rescheduled, or they rescheduled later in the day. It worked out so perfectly. I was like, I couldn't have planned that, which I couldn't have, because my plan would have had me overlapping and late and stressed and worried about the traffic in between point A and point B because I had it, I had perfect timing. And so I I'm so grateful for my father's uh example there because that's one thing that I feel that I'm I'm really okay with. Early in my business, uh something like that would happen. I'd be like, oh no, you know, and now I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

It's you know, I I people who've been following me for a while, they hear me say it all the time. I firmly 100% believe in providence. Like, and I know that some people can can hear that and think it's just like a cagey saying, everything happens for a reason. Everything happens for a reason, but I really truly believe that everything that happens happens for a reason. The good things and the bad things that happen. There's there's a purpose behind them. There is a providence and purpose behind them.

Choosing Trust During Crises

Spheres Of Control And Calm

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, or at the very least, because um, you know, we've had this conversation recently in in my Bible study, at the very least, that we can't ignore the fact that God isn't the only mover. There is another mover. There's things that just happen because of the world and the way it's set up that are random and that are accidental and that are that happen. There are intentional things that are are put in place by the enemy. There are consequences of our own actions, but no matter what those are, God is over all of them. And he has the ability and the desire. If we love him and are called according to his purpose, he will make all things good and work toward the good. All of them. All of them, all of them, regardless of what caused it on the underneath. It does because we can't get rid of suffering. And and and just because you suffer doesn't mean God said, I am making you suffer. There are things that he allows, there are things that he stops, but no matter what happens, he will work it all. And and and only he has that perfect vision. We see through the glass darkly. We can't know. And so we have no idea that this bad thing actually stopped something worse from happening. The the fact that this happened to us put spared us from something more worse. Yes, yes, and and what that worse was, we might not have thought it was worse, but the consequences of it might have been worse in the long run, whether it's from our heart or from a physical or from whatever.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yep. So so but and that comes down to how we view how we view what's happening in the world, right? That comes down to how we view what is happening in the world. At the end of 2018, I was doing ride share because I needed to be around people. Like for me, driving for ride share was an opportunity to be around people. It wasn't about money. It was like I needed people, I needed to be people in because I'm an extrovert. And I the job that I had at that time had me sequestered away in a little cubicle and it was killing me. So I started ride sharing. And it was New Year's Eve, it's supposed to be the biggest day of the year, obviously, for ride sharing. And I was so excited to get to do it that year. Like that was gonna be my first time doing New Year's Eve, driving drunk home, and I was really excited about it. That day I was T-boned and uh couldn't drive. So I could have gone, great, there goes the biggest night of the year. You could have been upset and resentful and angry. And I was like, oh my gosh, what did God just save me from? Yes, what did he just save me from? It's a perspective. It's a perspective. So whatever is going on in the world, literally, it is perspective. So I could have gone into my sympathetic system and felt sorry and pissed off and frustrated about the circumstance, but instead chose to be in the parasympathetic system, going, Wow, what did God just save me from? Exactly.

Comfort Food, Dopamine, And Renewal

Fasting, Freedom, And New Lenses

SPEAKER_01 14:59

And it's that trust, that that trust, saying, No matter what happens, he's got this one way or another. I I I'll I'll do everything that I can do. Like um, you know, during the the big the big storm, lost part of our heat. My husband doing everything he can to try to thaw out the pipes, it just wasn't working. And we just at that point was like, we did what we could do, the rest is in God's hands. We'll just pray a pipe doesn't burst. Right. And and um, but at that point, that trust, that having that trust and that perspective allows you to be in parasympathetic. It allows you to sh to to take a look. This is in in in my coaching practice, we use the sphere of control exercise to put things into perspective. What are the things I have absolute control over? My thoughts, how I see things, what I decide to do, right? What I the decisions I make with me, the things I have partial control over, I can influence decisions of those around me, or I can set things up, I can create a situation where I can increase the probability of good things happening. Um, for example, my health. I can optimize, I can do what I can for my health, and and then the outcome can be more likely to be positive than negative if I do certain things, but I can't 100% assure it. Things outside of my sphere of control, how other people think, how they perceive things, how they perceive me, what's happening in the world at large, what's happening with the weather. I can worry about, oh my gosh, what if this happens? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's outside of my sphere of control. And that is where we have to trust. We have to trust, and we, or, or at the very least, if you're, you know, if somebody is not a spiritual person, doesn't have the relationship with God, doesn't know how to trust God yet, at the very least recognized there's no point in agonizing over this because I can't do anything about it. It's outside of my sphere of control. And all that it's doing is causing me to spin wheels and anxiety and keeping me in a state where I can't I can't rationally think well. We can't rationally think well in in sympathetic mode. Correct. We can't make good decisions, we can't, we can't be, we we we aren't. I can't find I can't see a solution. I can't find creative. Um we're just in, we're just in survival. And in those moments, people in my world, they often, you know, I had a person who was recently had a really tough day and they're like, I'm gonna go eat comfort food right now. And I'm thinking to myself, why does comfort food have to be bad for you? But for this person, it was. It was like, I'm gonna carbload right now.

unknown 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Because it gives me that immediate dopamine hit. Right. But I and and you know, I've spent the last, yeah, I've spent the last, I don't know how many years now, uh, eight years creating recipes, maybe longer, actually, creating recipes that are my comfort food recipes that are totally helpful for me. So I can have both.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

But this comes, but this comes back to that perspective, right? What how am I viewing? How am I viewing things? Like, does it have to be bad, bad for me, or can it be good for me? And I choose to acknowledge that this is my comfort food instead of that. Like it's a perspective.

Closing And Community Invitation

SPEAKER_01 18:29

And do I need to do I need to be comforted? Do I need to be comforted by food? What are the other options? But there might be a period of transition where, yes, maybe that's the thing. But eventually now for me, it's it's not. I I God delivered me from my emotional attachment to food. Um, I am a foodie. I love food. I love food. I am a foodie. But my emotional attachment where I would do it out of boredom or out of upset or out of like anything like that, or go, you know, um, you know, has was was was lifted after the comfort in food, yeah. After my first extended fast. Yeah. Yeah. Where where that just it was not what I was expecting as an outcome of my first extended fast. I was doing it per purely for the science benefit. Had no idea. Had no idea. Of course I was.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Of course you were. That's who you are.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Part of who you are. Yeah. So I that was an unexpected but um well received benefit from from that. So yeah. That was interesting, but anyway, I trust. Trusting.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

And what's my perspective? What what is how am I viewing the world around me? And from what lens, what pair of glasses am I wearing as I'm viewing the world around me? Am I putting on my faith glasses, my parasympathetic glasses, or am I putting on my sympathetic glasses that operate out of fear? Those are my choices. I mean, there's probably more, but as far as this conversation goes, I have to, sorry, I have to put these ones back on. So yeah, these are my faith glasses. Actually, these are my computer glasses so I can see you.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Thank you for joining us here on Heart and Soul Elevation. If this conversation lifted you, share it with another woman who needs community.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Subscribe for more faith-first conversations, and for more community, join us over on YouTube where we grow together in real time.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Until then, may the peace of Christ guard your heart, steady your mind, and strengthen your body.