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The Catholic Sobriety Podcast
Welcome to The Catholic Sobriety Podcast with your host Christie Walker!
This podcast is dedicated to empowering Catholics to live lives of freedom by providing tips and tools to help them be successful as they reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption. Christie Walker, a compassionate Catholic life and sobriety coach, is here to support you on your journey toward a healthier, more fulfilling life.
Are you questioning whether alcohol has taken control of your life? Do you worry about the impact it may have on your well-being? Many people find themselves in this situation, fearing the loss of pleasure and stress relief associated with alcohol. They assume that giving it up will only bring deprivation and misery. But Christie offers a different and much more positive perspective.
With Christie's expertise, you'll discover the joy and peace that come from embracing a healthier lifestyle rooted in the Catholic faith and tradition.
Ready to get curious? Start listening!
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The Catholic Sobriety Podcast
Ep 19: Exploring Hope and Healing Through Faith, Prayer, and Detachment with Lisa Martinez
We all have moments when we feel lost or overwhelmed - times when we desperately need hope and healing. Today's guest, Lisa Martinez, knows these moments all too well. Join us as we sit down with her and explore how her journey of trauma, a loved one's addiction, and infertility led her to lean in hard to the transformative power of God's love and prayer, and how it inspired her to start the restoration ministry Little with Great Love and the nonprofit iAmplify.
Have you ever found yourself questioning if your prayers are really heard? We've all been there. But sometimes, the most powerful testimonies come from the darkest trials. In a moving segment of our conversation, Lisa opens up about her family's story relating to addiction and recovery. There's a profound lesson here - that even when the circumstances seem hopeless, trusting God and remaining steadfast in prayer can lead to miracles.
Our exploration continues as we delve into the liberating concept of detachment and its spiritual benefits. From learning to let go of the distractions that disrupt our spiritual order, to understanding how simplifying our lives can prevent hurtful experiences, it's a journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth.
Lisa's journey reminds us that faith in God can help us navigate even the most perilous situations. So, sit back, tune in, and explore the power of detachment, seeking God, and finding hope.
You can find Lisa on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/littlewgreatlove/ and
https://www.instagram.com/lisanch/
Little With Great Love:
https://www.littlewithgreatlove.com/
Spiritual Discernment Carmelite Sisters:
https://carmelitesistersocd.com/2012/spiritual-detachment/
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Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety podcast, the go-to resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives, women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason. I am your host, christy Walker. I'm a wife, mom and a joy-filled Catholic, and I am the Catholic Sobriety coach, and I am so glad you're here. Okay, welcome once again. And I am so excited today because I have a guest that I just think the world of she's amazing. So her name is Lisa Martinez.
Speaker 1:Lisa is a writer, an entrepreneur and the founder of the Restoration Ministry Little with Great Love. She was born in Metro Detroit and raised as Daddy's Princess with her three older brothers. Lisa now calls Austin, texas, home. She loves to travel through life and around the world with her mountain man husband, mike. Lisa is a fusion of creative and strategic, with a gift for storytelling across the digital landscape. She's a graduate of Franciscan University and studied writing, mental health and theology. Through her nonprofit, I Amplify, lisa helps organizations address the challenges of modern ministry and serves those serving the church. That's so important and so needed. She's also working on a project to help others suffering from infertility. Lisa's calling is to bring restoration in Christ to the brokenhearted, and I just feel so incredibly blessed to have her with us today. So thank you, lisa, for being here. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Chrissy, for having me. It's so great to see you and I love the work that you're doing through your podcast and through your ministry.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:The feeling is mutual. So Lisa and I both belong to a group called Catholics Online and it's a group where Catholic entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, ministry leaders, artisans just kind of have a place to connect and we met through a virtual meetup there and through our communication we realized that we both feel really strongly about women, knowing that they are so loved and valued by the Lord and that he is so merciful and kind and he desires all his beloved daughters just to turn to him in their joys and their sorrows, turn to him when they feel so unworthy and know that, regardless of what we've been through, what we've done, what's been done to us, god is for us and he wants us to return to him. So, yeah, so Lisa has words of encouragement and love to share with all of us and she's gonna talk a little bit about detachment today. But first, lisa, can you just tell us a little bit about your story and that you know desire that was placed on your heart to help women, and you know, with the Ministry of Restoration, yeah, absolutely, Thank you.
Speaker 2:So I have a background in my childhood of suffering trauma from sexual abuse, and so that happened at a very young age, the age of four, and it was actually something that was so painful that I repressed it so I didn't remember it until I was 19. I've written about it at our blog, littlewithgreatlovecom. I've also shared about some of the healing that I've done through therapy and through trauma therapy called EMDR therapy. So you guys can read about that a bit more on the blog as well, about my story and some of these helpful methods of overcoming trauma. And then I also, you know, went through some other trauma in our family through a sibling that was struggling with drug abuse, and so we've had addiction. You know in our family also history of addiction through grandparents on both sides. So that's something that I'd say impacted us in my family and then also impacted my parents when they were growing up.
Speaker 2:So my dad grew up in an abusive household with an alcoholic father, and I guess I really was just very grateful that my dad made the choice to not, you know, really have. I mean, alcohol wasn't a huge presence in our home growing up. They weren't T-tolers but they weren't, you know very, very much into it as well, and then say later in life, it took me a while to actually find my vocation, meet my husband. It wasn't until my mid-30s that I got married. So I had an opportunity for a number of years to kind of, do you know, be in the workforce and travel and have different jobs across different industries and kind of stumbled into entrepreneurship. But it was really like I had developed a business, a small business that I run with my husband on the side and then I amplify, you know, our nonprofit. That the Lord really called me to start taking care of my father. I had lost my mom right after we got engaged 12 years ago and I took care of her in her final days when she was on hospice and she died from she had had metastatic breast cancer so it came back in her bones, so my dad had been without my mother.
Speaker 2:I'm the youngest of four, I have three older brothers, and he just felt just a comfort, a closeness with me as his daughter just you know tend to be a little more nurturing than the guys and remind him of my mom, you know. So in that time the Lord really called me just to like I think we've suffered with infertility for 12 years of marriage and I think it was really through us not having children that I was able to just give myself fully to this time with my dad. I knew it was going to be really hard to after. You know, when my dad passed what that would look like because I had given myself fully, you know, to it. But my husband had said you know, don't worry about working right now, Just this time is really precious. You'll never get it back. So took care of my dad for the better part of a year and he died four years ago in March.
Speaker 2:And it was after that time where the Lord started to really reveal to me all this restoration that he had been doing through my brokenness and suffering over the years.
Speaker 2:You know, starting from the trauma of my childhood, the things that I went through with my sibling, through the addiction into you know, those years of waiting upon the Lord to come into my vocation, and then the years of infertility, taking care of both my parents, and the grief that it, you know, ensued from losing my parents.
Speaker 2:And through all of that brokenness, was showing me this deeper work that he was doing in restoration and how he was through his suffering, was drawing me closer to the suffering, Christ, and through that, transforming me, smoothing out my rough edges, of teaching me surrender, of teaching me to let go of my need for control, of reliance, of learning detachment and still learning these things, guys, you know, definitely haven't arrived, but on the journey, on the journey and through all this restoration and showing me that he was calling me to get a group of ladies together to start blogging about it and start sharing our stories, Because hope comes from hearing other people's experience, and so we can find hope and healing when we can start to hear just like you do here, Christy, how God's working in someone else's life, to know that you know God has a plan for my story too.
Speaker 2:So the restoration ministry started. The Lord started calling me to work on it later in the year, after my dad passed in March and, towards September, started working to launch it in January of 2020. Little did I know that we would be launching an online restoration ministry three months before a worldwide pandemic shut the world down.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we for the past three years have been working on that, and it's been a great blessing. I've got to meet so many incredible people like yourself too, so glory to God.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Thank you, lisa, for being so open and sharing all of that, and I I just love being able to hear people's stories and just see how God was like with them, walking with them, encouraging them, equipping them all of us, right, even in those really, really hard moments.
Speaker 1:And something that came to mind when you were talking about, like your, your experience with trauma, but then also your experience with other family members, members, addiction or, you know, things they've gone through, like the abuse that your dad suffered. And what we don't realize a lot of times are at least it has taken me a while to realize is how intertwined our stories are and how other people's stories become part of our stories, right? So the thing with your, your brother, suffering addiction, and then the role that alcohol played in your father's life and his approach to alcohol and those types of things, it all just kind of like blends together and then it forms how we approach life and how we do things. Like my dad had was also had a drug addiction and I saw that and I was like I don't want to be that, like I don't want to get there, and so that, as sad as it was to see, it did help, kind of push me to the edge of being able to get the help I needed, because I saw what could happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so true, it's so remarkable, and I agree, Having seen what the drug of use, how it totally changed the person I loved and knew into somebody, I could barely, when you look in someone's eyes and they look dead inside, that it comes to the point where you have to make decisions. I just seen that for sure. It's solidified. That's not even I mean it started. How people think today is so innocent because a pot has become legalized in so many places and so they just think, oh yeah, this isn't a gateway drug, it was. It was for my brother and the things that ensued from there were devastating. For our family. To watch somebody go through that, to feel very helpless, to feel like this person is disappearing before my eyes and I can't do anything to stop it, and I will say, to see the faith of my parents through that was, I think, one of the greatest witnesses to me of what the Catholic faith does. Because my mom doubled down, going daily mass. She would fast, she would pray, she would do the rosary. She was relentless in prayer, relentless. And there's a scripture and I, Guys, I wish I could quote it for you and know what exact scripture it was, but I know it was in Romans and my grandmother this was my maternal grandmother she had the family Bible and there was a scripture in Romans that they would write the name of the family member they were praying for and they would write a date next to the name. And so they wrote my brother's name and they wrote the date and they said they prayed over it my dad, my mom and my grandmother and they said God, you do whatever you have to do. My mom put in the PS note short of killing him within six months, and they wrote the date down and said do whatever you have to do to stop the drug abuse. And honestly, God, within six months. My brother stopped.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm talking years. I mean, at this point I think it had probably been maybe like seven years or something. I mean, years had gone by and it was just escalating and getting worse and, of course, things really had to escalate. I'm not going to go into all the details of that, but things really had to escalate so bad that we just it looked like almost like, oh my gosh, we're going to lose them. And so you had to. We just had to completely surrender in this very, very painful way, to just let go. And I remember for a couple of weeks we didn't know if he was dead or alive, didn't know where he was, didn't know. And, sure enough, one day I come home I was in high school at the time and I came home from softball practice. I see my brother at the house eating lunch and I'm like where did you come from? My mom is like floating, you know, like yes, prayers answered.
Speaker 2:And it was like this decision to I'm going to leave that entire life.
Speaker 2:I'm going to, I'm going to move to Florida because I need to get away, I need to detach right from the situation, from the people that I know I could fall easily back into with this and I just need a fresh start. So like, moved away and just started fresh and amazing, you know, and stuff that that somebody could just make that decision. He didn't go to rehab, he didn't this and and you know, whatever decisions people do or whatever they have to go through is part of their own story and I commend anybody that does. You know, any actions you know towards it. But it was really just like the clean break I'm getting out and starting over, started a new life. So praise be to God, because I know stories that don't go that way, People that have addiction for years and years and ends tragically. But like, the Lord intervened and my parents' prayer and our prayers really contributed to that, my grandmother at all of this and my sibling, my brother, was open to the grace to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:You know, but yeah, I mean, we're talking in the trenches, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, thanks be to God that is going to be such an encouragement to so many, because I hear from so many family members that are. You know, they're just at wit's end and they feel hopeless. So, just taking the page out of your family's story, just keep those prayers coming. You know, it's even like when people, when kids leave the church and parents are at their wit's end, it's like just keep praying, just keep praying. It's not over till it's over. So just pray unceasingly. And that is such a beautiful witness.
Speaker 1:And sometimes I think, like I will tell you that was my recovery story right, if I didn't have the firm faith foundation that I had, I don't know if I would have gotten the help that I needed. If I hadn't had, you know, people praying for me in heaven and on earth, I don't know that I would have made it out the way that I did. And I know that it was God, because it was not me, it was nothing, I did, nothing I could have done. I mean, yeah, you have to do the work. You can't just, you can't just pray it away. I love what you said, that your brother was open to the grace, and I think that's a testament to the faith foundation that your parents instilled in him and the graces right from our baptism and confirmation. When we have those, god can just work in ways that are miraculous, and that's your brother's story is nothing short of a complete and utter miracle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, completely, and even to you know, to this day he'll he'll say you know situations that he was in. We're just thinking, you know, yeah, you have a guardian angel, and I think you got an extra crew there, because things that you went through that you should not have survived, things that you know would have, you know had law enforcement involved different things that you're just like it's miraculous for sure.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, when you can start to just recognize, I think, the biggest thing that I've learned and I have a dear friend who, her brother, has struggled with drug abuse for decades and you know, we continue to pray and it's it's, it's so hard, I think sometimes, like hope can become this dangerous thing that we're just like, we're scared of it, we don't want to have it, you know, because we don't want to be let down again. Right, I've experienced that with infertility. But I think that you know, we, we serve a God of miracles, we serve a God that's faithful, and I think sometimes we like put all these prayers out over years and we can just think what's the point? What's the point Like, and in your right, like all that grace is going towards the good for, for something we can't see. And it's not that God's tuning us out or he doesn't care, but we have to recognize that you know, someone's free will is involved here.
Speaker 2:And we're facing something that is so entrenched, like I mean, obviously we know, like if, if you know people are like, well, we'll just stop, that you know just, don't. You know it's not simple when addiction is evolved. If someone could just stop, wouldn't they just stop, you know. So we have to believe that when somebody does stop, like wow, there there is miraculous intervention involved there and that, whatever you know someone's going through and whoever that we might think it's hopeless, you know, whatever, because it can take years to answer that prayer, don't stop praying, stop believing in God and what he is capable of, and don't stop believing that that person is capable to respond to the grace given. You know that it there just may be just a moment of breakthrough, that's allowed.
Speaker 2:So I'd say, you know, gather together, pray together for that person, just as we did in our family. You know, find a scripture that you can kind of attribute to them and like pray with and and believe that you know whatever they're going through, that you know that the Lord will reveal himself to them through their circumstances, and just continue to lay them on the altar, offer mass offer those sacrifices. Like you know, fasting is a powerful way to intercede for somebody and my mom was doing that, and so just offering up those, you know, sacrifice of that bodily sacrifice, has a power. I mean, the Lord himself said some things can only be driven out through through prayer and fasting. So if fasting would definitely be something and it doesn't have to necessarily be food, you can fast from gossiping or off your phone or social media, whatever. There's a lot of ways to fast. So definitely think of all those ways to channel grace towards somebody and don't give up. Don't give up, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I love that and I and I. Something that came to mind too is I remember I heard a woman who had cancer and she was always that person that did everything for everyone else, right, she would always bring the meals, she would always do the prayers, she would always do everything, and when she got sick she didn't want anybody doing anything for her because she just didn't feel. It was very hard for her to accept that until one day, you know, the Lord gave her. Like you're allowing, you're blessing others by allowing them to bless you. So in those prayers that we offer for others, in you know it can feel so hopeless, like you were saying, watching your loved one just deteriorate and disappear before your eyes and feel like you have nothing to offer. But you have so much to offer in the way of your prayers, your fasting, your those little.
Speaker 1:I know that you're one of your patron saints is St Teresa of the Zoo and you know she was always saying those little sacrifices, no matter how, how small or how big they all, god takes them all. And so if we realize that what we're doing to help our loved one, it also is helping God, pour graces into us and do the work in us that he has. So, like when I watched my dad, it's like, oh, I could just write it off like, oh, his whole life was just like tragic. But then I'm like, but look at what came of that, look how he helped me. He didn't even mean to but it. You know, watching him helped me, helped my brother, you know. So you can always, I think, if we, if we well last week's gospel, if we have the eyes to see and ears to hear, you know, god will use it for our good and their good as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, truth that 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So thank you again for sharing that. I know that's not always easy, but I know it's going to bless so many people to hear that, to hear your words and to hear your story. So thank you for your vulnerability and for sharing. I would love to hear I know you said that the Holy Spirit gave you something on detachment and I think that is so super important, right For all of us, whether we have an addiction or whether we're just looking to drink less or not at all. You know fasting, right, sometimes we need to fast from things and so just for our wellbeing and for our health. So talk a little bit about detachment, because I think it affects and can be applied to all areas of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. My guy, one of my patrons, is St John of the Cross and I was, because this feast day is my birthday, so December 14th, st John of the Cross, amazing carmelite mystic monk. If you haven't heard of St John of the Cross, go find this guy, and we have an episode on our Saints for Sacrists podcast that you can listen to on St John of the Cross too. But he had a example of attachment and he talks about a bird that's tethered to the earth and that it can be tethered to the earth with a small string or a large rope. And I remember thinking, oh well, if I'm tethered with a small string, that's better. And he said, no, any attachment impedes us from the Father, so any attachment hinders our flight to God. And that's actually, if you think of it spiritually and you start to think of where you're attached, it's really challenging Because I think a lot of times we think of things we're attached to.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I think for your community it would be easy to kind of identify through addictions and struggles than, okay, well, these are attachments that I have. But I think of when I started to think of attachments that I have, it's even to my own plans, how I want things. And there comes that, I think, from the abuse and trauma that I went through, what happens is a need for control, right, and that's how a lot of people who have been traumatized end up coping is, if I can be in control of my environment, then that gives me this false illusion that I'm not gonna be heard again or not gonna be taken advantage of. And that is a false illusion. And when we can start to realize, okay, god's in control, god wants what's good for me, god wants what's best for me, god's on my side, okay, then all of these things, that I don't want anything to hinder me from that relationship, and this is the central relationship here. And so, if we're talking about it, I'll just give you the definition actually of what Father John Hardin, who wrote the Modern Catholic Dictionary, says on attachment is it's an emotional dependence, either on one person or another, or of a person or some real or illusory object.
Speaker 2:The first condition for progress is sanctity. Insanctity is some mastery over one's attachments. So in order to make any progress in sanctity, for us to become holy that's what sanctified is is to become holy set apart we have to have some mastery over attachments and that feels like a big pill to swallow Sometimes, because we can be very attached. I'm very sentimental. I'm like a passionate person. So I have my mom side of the family's from Hungary and my dad's side of the family's from Mexico, so I say I'm a hungry Mexican. That's a little bit true too. We're like big cities.
Speaker 2:Basically, what you need to know about that combination is passion and passion. You put those two together and then it's like this idea of attachment can become really difficult when you're passionate about something and you're emotional, and so then it can become very sentimental about certain things I don't want to let go of, certain things like thinking of how I lost my parents. There's certain things that very attached to because of that loss, because of that grief, certain people I'm very attached to. Like I said, certain plans I'm very attached to, and all of this. If we think of that, if I want to grow in holiness, that I have to have some mastery over that attachment, and it means that I have this string, this tether that's bringing me to the earth and tying me towards something that. What do I have to do with this?
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of it is just asking for the Lord to help us with that mastery over it. Because if you just try to I find this in the spiritual life if we just try to elbow, grease our way through a lot of things and just try harder, it usually just gets harder and we don't get very far. These are like virtues that we need to ask for. So I think a good one would be like prudence and asking the Lord to reveal these areas that we're attached. If we think yeah, like no, it's no problem for me to give up that for a month or whatever, there are certain things that we just don't care about, and sure, that's cool. But if you told me like hey, you can't be on Instagram for a month or something, I would kind of be like, ah, you know, yeah, there's a little pushback. Oh, you're going to feel it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like my scroll time guys, you know, yeah, I think it just reveals to us our stance, like where our heart is, you know, and we have to think like my heart has to be fully with. So there's, we have the Creator and we have the creation. If we're drawn more to creation over our Creator, that's disordered and we have to ask the Lord to bring a proper order there, that we seek our Creator. He created all these good things for us, and if we're seeking Him first, then it's okay to have these things. But it's almost like that we hold them with very loose hands, so we just ask the Lord to um, yeah, just let me hold things loosely so that I can do what you want above all things, that I seek you above all things, that I love you above all things, rather than I am seeking your creation to fill some void in me. Likely Mm-hmm, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that those are all like such good points because we do just hold on to things, whether it's for comfort, whether it's just to feel better about ourselves, whether it's fear, like what you know, if I'm not on Instagram for a month, what if I miss something? What if people miss me? No, but I mean, or who am I without alcohol? Cause I'm like the fun girl and I. You know, that's how we connect, that's what we do as a family. So there's a lot of things that keep us attached that aren't necessarily in our best interest to stay that way. And also I think it's important to find out that when to talk about when we do start to detach, it feels like super uncomfortable, right, it feels awkward, it feels uncomfortable no matter what we're detaching from, and so we just also have to know that's coming. But then it gets a lot easier, like I used to.
Speaker 1:I mean, like a lot of us growing up in the 80s and 90s I watched a ton of TV. Like that was like the thing. I just watched tons of it. And even after my husband, I got married, we watched a lot of TV and slowly we kind of stopped watching certain things, like I used to watch True Crime. It made me a paranoid, crazy mom. So I stopped watching it and but at first I was like, oh, I got a. You know, it felt really weird not to be watching it. Now I hardly watch any TV at all, so it's not necessarily that we have to detach completely, depending on what it is right, but as we detach it does start to like matter less and less to us, so that either it's something that we partake in very little or not at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, I think the main thing is is right, am I seeking creation over the creator? Am I finding my identity in this thing? Is this thing filling a void for me? Basically, the way that they define it would be are we seeking something in excess of our needs? Are we using it for a purpose other than for what it was intended, and are we using it as ends rather than means to a legitimate end? So I'm finding all you know, this, I'm putting all my weight into this and this is that pleasure for me and this is that, you know, takes me, you know, helps me to relax, or it's like, you know, I need this in order to, in order to, you know, de-stress or whatever, or I'm excessively using this and now I have yeah, they have a dependence on it and I, you know there is a sense of disorder there. So I think that you know, spiritually, it's important. The thing to remember is like, the more this is what the basis of St John of the Cross is like, the more that we grow in godliness, like the simpler we become. And so if we're just trying to really kind of simplify and to become more like Christ, it is to like, I mean you think of how Christ lived. I mean he in his public ministry, he didn't have a home, he didn't you know like. He just kind of was this vagabond of sorts, you know, and stuff that was going where the Lord called him through the spirit and he was living off of the generosity of, you know, of others. And so like this detachment for me I think I can give an example of it I found that when I was single and was was praying for for God to send me a husband, I was becoming very attached in relationships very early and it was so hard for me because I would be hurt and I called him my frying pan relationships because it was like in three months it was like a frying pan.
Speaker 2:It went hot and quick and then boom, it was done. So when I started to pray for God, you know, I asked him just help me be detached. I don't want to care so much because I just, you know, think too much too soon of somebody and become attached and then it just hurts so bad. So I just asked him to help me become detached and I did. I was, as I continued to pray that prayer. It was much easier to be like you know, I think I hearted my heart in a sense, you know, in some ways. But what I asked for was I asked for because of these frying pan relationships? I said I want a crock pot, I want a crock pot relationship, I want something that's going to burn long and slow for a long time. And then my brother gave me a crock pot for Christmas that year and he didn't even know. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I'm like, ah God, you're so funny. You know, come that spring I met my husband. But in the very beginning he'll tell you that I was like, you know, he was like excited to meet and like you know all these things. We met on e-harmony and he was, you know, just wanting, okay, you know, and I was like, well, I'm going on a mission trip but I'll see if I want to talk to you when I come back. Like I just was, like I don't care, you know, I don't want to care, I don't want to get hurt again, you know kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But it was more that I just wanted this freedom and this detachment to just be, you know. So in that I was very you know, it was very tentative in my attachment to him in the very beginning, and I mean it took me a very long to even say I love you, like he had said it before I did it for some time, you know, before I could even do that. Because I thought, if I'm going to attach and I'm going to allow myself to love here, I know it's I have to be ready to like put the ring on it, sister. You know, like I have said, I'm going to allow myself to attach again. It's going to be full in and I think then, you know, I mean, obviously the Lord wanted me to, you know, to grow in love with him and to be, you know, in vows of marriage, you know, and so, so that is an attachment from God. You know that I have, you know, in my love for him.
Speaker 2:But these other things and those three things that I mentioned, you know, in excess of our needs, for purposes other than which they were attended, or as ends to the mean, instead of that legitimate end, that's going to kind of help you. Now, is this disordered, is this something? But I think we also kind of have those little things in the back of our mind that are knowing like this isn't really good for me, you know, and we kind of just can rationalize it and just be like, but well, you know, and just keep doing it, you know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, yeah, those are great points to keep in mind. I love that and I'll put that. I'll put those in the show notes because I think that that is a really great guide to follow. Just to ask yourself about anything that you feel like maybe you're being attached to One of my friends who's a food freedom coach.
Speaker 1:She talks about like chaos causing foods, right, and so if something is like chaos a chaos, substance, a chaos, food, a chaos, people you know there's all kinds of things. It takes up a lot of our brain space. It's something that you know we get panicky about if we're not going to have it around. And then there's, you know. So she has all of these like markers of what is a chaos causing food. And so, as you're mentioning those three things about detachment, it just like fits perfectly with that, because if something is causing you chaos, then you're probably using it for something it's not intended. You're probably, you know, doing all those things and, yeah, I think that's such, it's such a good thing for so many parts of our lives. Yeah, it's gonna be so helpful and I just so appreciate you sharing that yeah, it comes from the Carmelite sisters, just so I can cite them.
Speaker 2:The Carmelite sisters are the most sacred heart of Los Angeles, so I'll give you a link to that article as well, because it was. It's been so helpful to me. I did a, I did a vlog a while back on. It was it was Decluttering and the spiritual benefits of decluttering, and so decluttering as I talked about that and it's been our most popular video that we have on our YouTube channel that it had to come into detachment. I mean anytime that you have to like create some order or space in your home. So I really like, as I went into detachment there, that it just started to be like, well, this isn't just, of course, apply to, you know, trying to create more order in my home. This, this applies to creating more order in my spiritual life, into every area, and looking at the importance of detachment in all of those places.
Speaker 2:And I mean a perfect example my husband and I were in a car accident in December where we were hit by a drunk driver going the wrong way on the freeway and so we just very narrowly, very narrowly missed a head-on collision at over 60 miles an hour had my husband not turned, you know, the wheel, we would have been hit head-on and it was on my birthday, so it was on the Feast of St John the Cross. You talk about detachment and so the, of course, you know, the other driver did not know that that car was actually was my dad's car, that I was gifted by my siblings for caring for my dad. So my dad was an engineer for Ford Motor Company for 40 years and so it was a Ford car that was given to me for taking care of my dad, and so the car was sold. It spun around Multiple times in the freeway, the back wheel went off but, as we said, in that totaled car where the airbags that come out, on Mike's side I have a st Jude metal that was on my side of the car, so my side of the car wasn't affected at all. It is got pretty banged up, you know.
Speaker 2:Then I looked over at him and I was like, are you okay? And you know my mom always used to say you know, cars can be replaced, people can't be replaced. And so while that other person's actions were very reckless and affected us deeply, financially, physically, everything that I realized, you know, afterwards it was kind of that letting go of my dad's car and of having to get a new one and and I realized, as I you know was going through that detachment and kind of grieving that that that that car probably really helped save our life you know and.
Speaker 2:That took the hit and not us. That was worth letting that go. And and afterwards, you know, realizing that my dad, my dad's memories always with me, regardless of if I have any of his personal effects, his love has impacted me. His memory is, is still with me and in regardless of what I have of his, it doesn't, it doesn't make or break any of the love that we shared or any of the memories we have. And so that to me was like a big sign of like, hey, I'm making some progress in detachment, yeah, if I can let that go, you know.
Speaker 2:But also, I think the bigger lesson for me was learning. You know that, as the state trooper was standing there that day, she just kept saying I'm I'm so glad to be talking to you right now. She's like you don't understand that doesn't happen in these situations. So, as a state trooper, she sees tragedy in those events all the time and I said, well, that's why I pray every time I get in the car because of this very instance that could happen. And you realize how precious things are.
Speaker 2:And I think we just don't want to wait until we have to face a tragic incident like that to realize that I need to detach. You know God gives us so many opportunities on the daily to like surrender, to let go, to put a proper order, to seek him above all things, and then you know, just don't wait for something so terrible to happen. But what the Lord was showing me through that was, yeah, let that go. But also to pray for the soul of the man who hit us, because obviously I Wish he would find your podcast, christie, but he's going through something obviously Difficult in his own life that he would be seeking To drink to that point and then put people in In such danger on the road. You know that he would drive the wrong way down the freeway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so I had to learn how to pray, you know. Pray for somebody that Could have, could have taken our lives and learn to just really let go of any of the Physical issues that it's had financial impact, that it's had on us, and just realized that we've walked away with what's most important that we're alive. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my gosh, thanks be to God. That is, that's amazing. It when you are saying, when you're telling your story and about that being your dad's car, I just kept feeling like your dad, like around you, protecting you, like you know as you, because that was his car and that was, you know you were in that and you pray and you know you, it did, you know, protect you, plus the quick thinking of your husband, you know, and your guardian angels were probably working overtime to make sure that you got out of the way. And I mean that's just a beautiful testament because, yeah, nothing is hours forever, right, it's just a gift to people, things, everything, and so I think that that is a beautiful reminder of that.
Speaker 1:Like, I don't know the scripture exactly, but you know it's that scripture that's the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord and yeah, so it that just, we have to be detached. It doesn't mean we don't care. It doesn't mean we don't value. It doesn't mean we don't love and we're not grateful.
Speaker 1:It just means that If it has to go that, we're okay with that and if we have it for longer, then you know that's, you know that can be okay too when it comes to certain things, but some things we do have to let it go and just so that we can be closer to God, and I love that vision from Saint John of the Cross of being tethered. You know, I just kind of feel like purgatory, like when we go into purgatory. I love the doctrine of purgatory, because then I feel like we get to kind of clip those all those, because we're still going to have detach or we're going to have attachments and that's why we need purgatory and just kind of clipping all of those as we go through that purgation of purification.
Speaker 1:Yeah but yeah, so I guess we can't beat ourselves up about it too much. We're always there's always going to be things we're attached to, but yeah, as long as we keep in mind that if it's excessive or if it's keeping us from God or keeping us from you know, we are making it an idol or you know something like that then we really need to look at it and and maybe try to let that go, if we can ask for that help and I think that, yeah, that's, that's the big.
Speaker 2:you know, in that instance, like Lord, okay, help me to seek you above all this, help me to be grateful and, you know, help me to. I think it's like I don't want to have those hindrances with you. I think some of the good things to do would be you know, you have to think about why. Why am I so attached to this? Why does this matter so much to me? Why am I so upset by whatever's, you know, maybe trying to hinder my attachment to God, or even or whatever?
Speaker 2:And if you start to evaluate those things and then start to work through it, you know cognitively right, and just rationally start to go through and realize, okay, you know, this doesn't define me, this, if I don't have this, I'm not going to die, you know.
Speaker 2:Or you know those type of things where you just have to kind of get to a basic level and I think you know St John and the Carmelite sisters have really kind of helped me to have that insight and then, to you know, think about, okay, where can we clip those things? Or if I have a large rope, let's even just work on getting that to be thinner and less detached, you know, and just keep going back to the Lord. And I think, like I said, we don't want to get to that point where something has to be tragically stripped from us or you know something for us to learn these lessons, because I think God gives us so many opportunities to continue to learn and it's you know, at these, at these critical moments, we want to kind of have the resources then to be able to cope with it, instead of like oh my gosh, I can't even.
Speaker 2:You know, I can't let go of a tiny thing over here. How am I going to let go of this huge thing?
Speaker 1:Well, and I also loved what you said when you were talking about praying for detachment when you were waiting for your husband, and that just reminds me to remind everybody, like, just ask. So I think sometimes we're afraid to ask because we're afraid that it won't happen or that it won't work, or that there's something broken within us that it, you know, god can't fix us or help us. And that is just not true, because I did when I first got sober and went to a a I was struggling with maintaining sobriety, like it was a struggle is very hard every day, which is the case when there is a disordered attachment, and I asked God to remove my desire to drink and he did Like he did. And I would tell people that and they're like that's crazy, like that's not, that doesn't happen. But it did, you know. And the same thing with your husband. I mean, yeah, maybe you made it a little hard on him, but he stuck around, so you knew that he was for you, but you know you asked for that and God granted that to you.
Speaker 1:So we have to not just ask but be open to the fact that he might actually give it to you, you know, and that would be a beautiful and very hopeful thing, Because God's power is amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you've asked, you can keep asking. I don't think he doesn't get like impatient or mad at you like other people you know, Like when it's like mom, mom, mom, mom, you've asked me 12 times.
Speaker 1:I've told you before.
Speaker 2:you know and stuff like that, Like you're testing me. You know God doesn't weary of us, you know, and those requests keep coming to him, just like we said before. You know, in the example of my brother and even now, you know, I think I've most recently experienced it, you know, in motherhood and seeking motherhood and for 12 years of infertility. You know we've had said so many novenas and tried all these treatments and gone to different. You know doctors and surgery and you know so many different things that there comes a point where you can just feel like I'm so tired of asking and I'm so tired of holding out hope and I just, you know, maybe you just don't have this for me, and I think that's where the enemy wants to come in, and just think you know. But I had a man pray over me once who had a prophetic gift and he said you wear the devil out with your patients. That's so powerful.
Speaker 2:If you guys can take away anything from this like remember that you wear the devil out with your patients, so and so what does that my patients? Gives God glory, my patients. And so we've talked about this. I know you've had Christina Brown on your podcast, I talked about it before that.
Speaker 2:You know, the waiting isn't this like diminutive, like passive thing? That I can be active in my waiting and that I have hope in you, lord. I believe in you, I believe in your power, I believe that the power that raised Lazarus from the dead is still alive today, because you're the same God that you were, you know, yesterday, today and forever, you know. So your resurrection power still is alive and I'm wearing out the enemy as I wait on you and as I hope in you and you can turn to the Psalms. There's so many great Psalms that you can just, you know, marinate in and just allow the Lord to speak to your heart when it's weary, when it feels defeated, when you don't feel hope, when you don't feel something, because, remember, feelings are information but it's not reality. And so, when those feelings start to come up and you're like you're, you know, starting to crush some giants, maybe with the, you know, becoming more detached, or you're starting to grow spiritually.
Speaker 2:Whatever, there's gonna come a long obstacles, there's gonna come things that come towards your way to try to bring you down, try to take you out, and we can realize that you know. No, I'm gonna stand firm in the Lord, I'm gonna be patient with him. That my patience glorifies God and I know he has something good for me because at the end of this, I'm his beloved, I'm his child and he wants good things for me. And so that you know all that time that we spend in suffering and whatever is not wasted unless we let it be wasted, you know there's lessons for us to learn, there's ways for us to grow and love a communion with the Lord there's. Offering it up saves souls, guys, I mean, geez, if you're having a struggle today, you're attached to something, or you really want that drink, or you know I can't get off the social media or whatever the thing is that's impeding my love for God and my relationship with God. Offer it up. Offer it up and it sounds like so cliche, like, oh, just offer it up.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying it's easy.
Speaker 2:No, it is not. It's simple to say, it's hard to do, but through that you get so many graces and like put those graces towards something, guys, because at the end of our life, when we see what all of that suffering went towards, I think the only regret we'll have is that we didn't offer it well, that we didn't make some good use of it. You know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, such good stuff. Thank you so much, lisa. This has been such a gift and I could talk to you for hours, honestly, but it has been such a gift I mean it's gonna this. I know that your message is just gonna encourage and bless so many people, and so I really, really appreciate it, but why don't you tell people like how they can get ahold of you, where they can find you? And I'll be sure to leave all that information in the show notes also.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're at littlewithgreatlovecom. We're on Instagram. It's littlewgreatlove and Instagram. We also have a Facebook page, littlewithgreatlove, and we're on Pinterest, youtube. We're in all of those social places. My personal Instagram is LeeSanche L-I-S-A-N-C-H. You can follow me there and there's ways to reach out to us through any of those platforms. Guys, if you send a DM or reach out at info at littlewithgreatlovecom, it's all gonna get to me one way or another. So I'd be happy to connect with anybody in your audience. We'd love to and check out our blogs. We do that. We're taking just a little break for until the assumption, but we're gonna be posting some stuff still on our socials about rest during this time, because there's seven different kinds of rest, so we're gonna be sharing about that through our socials. So that's how you can reach me.
Speaker 1:Perfect, oh, that's so great. And you have a wide gamut of writers that write for your blog, so there's just like something for everyone in all different ages, right, cause you have, is it? Alyssa? That she is like 20 something. And then there's, like you know, women from all walks of life, all stations, all vocations, and I just love it. It's so rich. So I encourage you all to definitely check out Little With Great Love, and definitely their blog, cause there's so much there. So thank you so much A lot for you guys.
Speaker 1:So, yes, working hard, but rest this summer and we'll look forward to all the other stuff. So, yes, thank you so much for being here and I can't wait to talk to you again soon Me too. God bless you guys, all of you. Well, that does it for the Catholic sobriety podcast. I just want to thank once again my guest, lisa Martinez. Don't forget to check her out at Little With Great Love, and I'll leave all her contact information below. If you found this episode to be an encouragement, I would ask that you share it with others and just help us spread the message of hope and encouragement. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so that you never miss an episode, and if you loved it, please rate, review and I will see you next time. And remember I am here for you, I am praying for you, you are not alone.
