Episode 26: The Beauty of A Simple Life and Finding Your Way in Prayer with Melayna Alicea

Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you just had less things to manage?

Writer and Editor Melayna Alicea lets in on a sneak peak of what life is like when you cut out many of the worldly distractions. In this episode we cover:

• How to create more opportunities for pockets of prayer
• What it means to consecrate your marriage to the Holy Family
• What we can learn from the Catholic Catechism
• 3 prayer tips you can start implementing right now

Be sure to follow along for more great episodes and subscribe to Melayna's newsletter here: https://stumblingtosainthood.substack.com/

You can also find Melayna Alicea on Instagram right HERE

Next Steps

Set up a free Exploration Call with Kylie: https://kyliemhein.kartra.com/calendar/ExplorationCall 

• Get the details on the 12 Week 1:1 Plan of Life Program
• Find info about Group Coaching Opportunities and workshop replays
• Ask questions!

Connect on Instagram: @kyliemhein

Send an email: info@kyliemhein.com

Some of my favorite episodes!

• Episode 22: Knots Of Grace: Finding Your Unique Value and Praying Through Change with Kathleen Borsh
• Episode 18: Sorry...You're Just Not Special

Transcript

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Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome to the Persistence in Prayer podcast hosted by Catholic Mindset coach, wife, mother, educator, and speaker, Kylie Hine. Kylie is passionate about helping you deepen your relationship with God through the power of prayer. This podcast is a space for high achievers who want to do it all, but also want to prioritize their spiritual life and grow in faith. Join us as we explore the beauty of persistence in prayer and the transformative impact it can have on our lives. Get ready to discover practical tips, insights, and inspiration to help you develop a daily prayer practice and cultivate a deeper sense of trust in God's plan for your life. Let's journey together towards a more fulfilled and faithful life as we invite the Holy Spirit in. Let's begin. Today. I am so blessed to be joined by independent writer and editor Malayna Alycia. You might have heard of a little thing called catechism in a year. She is working on the background scenes of that project, which I think is so cool. She is going to share knowledge that she has learned from that project. With us today it is such a blessing to have her here and she is going to share us what it is like to live a life of simplicity. How consecrating our families to the holy family or any type of consecration. In particular is beneficial for our spiritual lives. Also, what is a consecration? Anyway, we're going to walk through all of these things and make sure you stick around until the end, because Malayna shares with us some really awesome prayer tips that you are going to want to start implementing today. And with that let's welcome Malaina alycia Malayna. thank you so much for being here Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Can you just start by telling us just a little bit about you? Who are you? Where do you live? What do you do? Yes. So I live in Franklin, North Carolina. It's Western North Carolina, Smoky Mountains, almost in Tennessee. We live in the country. My husband and I, we both work from home. We're both entrepreneurs. My husband's a wood craftsman. And then I work from home as a Mostly as a writer and an editor, but I'm also working on becoming a Femme Fertility Care Practitioner, so that's in the works too. We have two little boys and one on, one on the way. And we're just all about living our life focused on God and family first. So that's kind of our mission. I love that. What does that look like to put family first? For us now, I want to like put a little pin in that and say, I feel like everybody has to live it out a little differently. I feel like God calls you to live it out a little differently. For us, we, when we got married, we consecrated our family to the Holy family because we really were, we were very hopeful that we would have big family and we really wanted the Holy family to guide us in how God was going to lead our family. And I feel like because we did that, um, God has really led us. To living that out by living simply and just having our kids with us all the time, which, you know, can be a little crazy and not everybody is called to that. But for us, it's just been, can we structure our work around, our day be functioning in such a way that we can be really present to our kids while also still supporting and providing for our family. I think that's awesome. You mentioned holy family consecration for someone who's never Consecrated their family to any particular cause or anything like that. Can you tell us what does that look like? What does that even mean? Could you describe it? Yeah, so obviously Jesus is a part of the Holy Family, and I add that in there because one of the most famous consecrations are consecration to Mary. And that's actually a shortened version of the name. If you were to consecrate yourself or your family to Mary, it's consecration to Jesus through Mary with the idea that Mary is always pointing you directly to Jesus. And basically you just kind of have an extra support from Mary there to keep directing you closer and closer to Jesus. So when we consecrate our family to the Holy Family, specifically, It's a similar thing, consecration to Jesus through the Holy Family, but really looking at it as a whole of like Mary's there as a spiritual mother, Joseph as a spiritual father, and then the child Jesus. I have a special devotion to the child Jesus and just his humility. And, um, I felt that it's helped to remind me to be more humble as a mother. Like when I fail, I can look at how Jesus, our God humbled himself and became a child. And so when I fail, I can humble myself and apologize to my kids. Um, so that's just a little bit. Of what that has meant to me. You explain that so beautifully, especially talking about like the consecration to Mary, but because that is the shortened version and so many people don't understand that. I'm curious how you feel like this has affected your family or if you've seen a shift since you did this consecration, because I know I did the consecration to Jesus through Mary. But I feel like I felt such a huge shift in my spiritual life like having that like you just said it extra support It's not that that Jesus is not so the center that God is not so the center of everything But especially I love the Holy Family because you're bringing Joseph into it as well so I I'm curious have you noticed any shifts in your Personal faith life since you did this consecration. Absolutely. So when my husband and I were dating, we were high school, sweethearts, he was a Southern Baptist and he decided to convert his senior year of high school. Like he came into the church on a senior prom night. So that's its own story. But in the process of his conversion, I was like, okay, leading up to this, we're going to say a 54 We're going to consecrate our relationship to Mary. So I kind of like. him like straight into that. And I really feel like that's ultimately what led us to consecrating our marriage to the whole Holy family, because we'd already had that extra relationship with Mary guiding us in our relationship with each other. But when we, when we consecrated our marriage to the Holy family, which was when we got married and we got married right, like at the tail end of college. And so. We had plans for our life. Like we just, we were like, this is what we're going to do. This is exactly how it's going to go out. We had a five year plan and a 10 year plan and all of these things. And the minute that we said, okay, we are going to let the Holy family lead us. God took us in a whole different direction. He completely changed our career plans, our career paths. He moved us to the mountains way earlier than we were planning to do that. And just over and over again, I felt called to just say, I need to let go. And I need to let God, and it's a very tight. A personality type that was really difficult for me, but I found that having that extra like leadership from Mary and from Joseph, especially it's helped me to be like, okay, I can look at them. They were literally woken up in the middle of the night and said, travel to Egypt. And I have not been asked to do that. So if God is asking me to let go of this one plan and start going in another direction. I can trust him. If he provided for them, he will provide for me. There have just been so many times where I've been able to stop and reflect on the little that we do know about Jesus's childhood and the craziness that it was, and say, okay. If I am God's beloved daughter, He's not going to abandon me. And I'm able to look at the life that He gave Jesus and the way He led Mary and Joseph and say, okay, He can do the same thing for me. I love it. So the Holy Family, talking about going back to just this experience that Mary and Joseph had. Even though it's not liturgical year right now, I'm doing the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. And that's really where I've been spending a lot of my time recently is on the birth of Jesus. And right now I'm in his childhood years, and like you said, we don't know a lot, but we, we learned so much from Mary and Joseph just there. Entire detachment to be able to like, okay, the angel came to Joseph and Mary trusting Joseph. Joseph is so key. The angel didn't come to Mary and say, we're going to travel. He came to Joseph and then she submitted to him and just trusted him. Like, okay, this is what we're doing. This is where we're going. And they moved and then they moved again. There was no home base, so to speak. It's like, we're going wherever we need to go. And whatever we need is going to be provided. And so I, I like that you brought that up because it's so easy in our culture to get wrapped up in all of the things. And it sounds like you talked about living simply that's kind of carried over into your own family life. Yes, absolutely. And, we have a house, we have plenty of room in our house, but. I'm very much a penny pincher and I think something that Like we have learned as a family is we don't need a lot. Like we live in the country in the mountains and what a lot of people don't realize that means is we have spotty cell service and we have to drive out if we want to do things that involve a lot of strong wifi sometimes, because. We live on the side of a mountain, so we rent DVDs from the library and we don't stream, and a lot of people will come and visit us, and it actually takes them a second to, I don't know, unwind from the crazy loudness of the world, and they'll ask us, like, why do you live here? Why do you listen? I'm like, just look outside. It's just beautiful outside, you can just see God, and if I was able to And this is a, this is a simple example, but the whole streaming thing really gets people when they come to our house. If I was able to stream whatever show I wanted on Netflix all the time, I would miss the opportunity to look out my window and just watch the beauty of nature. It's just, it calls me to just see the beauty that's around me rather than to fill my life with noise all of the time. And that's just like one example. We've just found that, we were not pursuing careers that make us. You know, super comfortable all the time. Like we, we make enough to have what we need and to tie. And that's and that's really all we need. And I found so much peace in that now, sometimes with the crazy fluctuating economy, it can be a little bit stressful to not have this like extra weight, you know, really good, good income coming in all the time. But at the same time, I've seen how God has just continued to provide for us in ways that don't make sense sometimes because we're choosing to live the life that he's called us to. I love that. You're eliminating the distraction. You talk about, not being able to stream things. I think of in our, in our own house, we have One TV and so many days. I almost wish it wasn't even here. Even though it's just one I have been really adamant about just keeping one because if we're gonna watch TV Then everybody's gonna be together But that has been a struggle and especially for my husband because he is someone who desires the constant noise and he really struggles even with like people eating or like that extra sound like really bothers him. And so it's like he always wants the TV on and I'm like, I just want the quiet. My husband's the same way and he's Puerto Rican and he tries to say it's a cultural thing and I'm like, no, I think it's just a people thing. You don't want to sit with your own thoughts. But it is interesting, you know, you said you don't have great wifi. We, we don't live on our farm, but we do have 40 acres. And there, the second you get out close to it, there is no cell service. I mean, it's like this little pocket. Sometimes it's frustrating because you're like, if my husband's out there on the tractor or something, I want to be able to check in on him. But it's like this little pocket where like, you know, what detached from the world, just be here, be in this moment, enjoy the scene around you, enjoy the work, all of the work that there is out here. Oh my God. I can't imagine with 40 acres. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So. It's little by little, you know, we have, a few cows and things like that in garden and, and it can be a lot of work, but I've just been so grateful for the way that you can take that and turn it into prayer as well. So in the garden, um, you know, I, I don't enjoy all of the bugs. I don't enjoy a lot of the extra stuff, but it's a way to work and provide for a family, but it can be so prayerful. To just do that work that doesn't require a lot of thought and offer that time to God. So I'm curious on your homestead, is there anything that you find is like something that is mundane but becomes like a really prayerful task for you? Yes, so when you were mentioning your garden, now 40 acres, so my garden is much smaller and it's still in the works. It's actually mostly an herb garden right now. it's That's, that's really been what has flourished this year and some tomatoes, like my tomatoes have done really well, but my herbs have just gone crazy. When I feel overwhelmed or stressed or touched out by little people, my favorite thing to do is to just like take my shoes off and go and weed my garden with my bare feet. And there's just something very, I don't know, in my personal spiritual life. The whole image of a bare foot has been like a big, a big part of my prayer life. And so when I feel like I need to just get back in touch with God, get back in touch with just the roots of who I am walking around in bare feet is one of the ways I do it. And so I'll just go out in my garden and weed it and water it. And pick whatever herbs or if there's a tomato, or a Brussels sprout, those have recently popped up. I'll just walk around in my bare feet and I might say a Hail Mary. And it just like helps to reset me and to quiet myself. And, um, we also have quite a few. Two chickens running around and so I, I don't know if like it's an intentional prayer but that's also something that I've just found so much peace in. My two year old loves to carry the chickens around and there's just something so wholesome about sitting and watching it and sometimes I'll let him play with the chickens and I'll just sit on a bench and press play on a rosary. Recording because sometimes my brain is just going too much for me to sit down and like intentionally pray a rosary while I'm watching him run around outside, but having it playing in the background helps to quiet myself and then it helps me to offer up that moment for whatever intention. Yeah, and I think those Just that visual, those types of things can lead us to spiritual consolation, like just leading our hearts to God. St. Therese of Lisieux, I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but I don't remember if it was chickens, but it was hen of some kind and her chicks, and that was like her sitting outside and seeing that, and then it just reminded her of like the love of God and being under his wing, and so I think those natural things that when we Take time, like when we are intentional about noticing them, because God is in literally everything, but we get so caught up in, like you said, the stress and the overwhelm and all the things that we have to do, that we miss those opportunities to recognize him in all of the little natural things. So you have littles at home. You've talked about being touched out. How do you maintain any kind of prayer life with that scenario? Oh my gosh. So when I first became a mom, I struggled so much with this. Like I remember I was pregnant with my first, in the middle of COVID shutdown, which. There was two issues with that. First was I couldn't go to mass, and I had always gone to daily mass like for years gone to daily mass at least a couple times a week if not every day. And then I also went to adoration usually once a week at like a set hour. And all of a sudden COVID happened and we were living in a town that did not have a lot of access to things like adoration and daily mass and all these different things. And I felt so far from God amidst this, like where we were also shut down and I kind of had more time for prayer. And so I tried to do. Like 30 minutes of set prayer and reflection time at my house while I was pregnant. And that helped my prayer life a bit, but then you throw a new baby into the mix. And I had no idea how to keep up with that 30 minutes of like quiet prayer time because there's a baby crying or somebody needs you or all these other things. And, so one of the things that I got into with my first was listening to podcasts. Specifically, I think the Bible in a year podcast came out for the first, like the first time it came out right after he was born. So that helped my prayer life, just going for a walk and listening to a podcast. But I still felt like I was kind of blocking God off from my life at that time. And I didn't even mean to, it was just that I wasn't prioritizing time with him. And it really took. I would even say like up to like a year ago that I finally started to figure out a routine And part of that for me was I had to Let go of my desire to sleep in and snuggle with my one and two year old who usually end up in bed with us by the end of the night. And I love snuggling with them, but I realized that I was waking up and they were screaming and all of craziness was starting and I had no time to like reset myself. So I started to get up. An hour. Actually, I started with like 30 minutes before they woke up and I kind of expanded it to now I get up about two hours before they wake up and I make breakfast for everybody and then I sit down in my little prayer corner in my comfy chair and I, I really like to pray the liturgy of the hours. So I might start off with like morning prayer, spend some time in silence or listen to the daily readings. That's usually how I like to start my day off. But I've found that, you know, some mornings I might feel like I need something else. Like I might need a prayer journal, but that has been like my core of my personal prayer time is having at least 30 minutes of quiet time to myself with my cup of coffee and my breakfast, I call it my coffee time with Jesus. And then throughout the day after that I really don't have the quote unquote time to stop and pray, but I have little kid rosaries so in the afternoon while my husband is working sometimes me and my boys will play a rosary recording and I'll hold my rosary, and they run around with their rosaries and play. or I'll play it while they're playing outside. Um, another thing that I like to do is I have a holy water font by like in the middle of our house. And so I'll pass it and it'll remind me, like, as I do the sign of the cross that all of my life can be a prayer. So taking a second to be like, okay, I've got to do the dishes. And Who can I offer this up to and just having that little tangible reminder that even though there might be screaming going around all around me and nothing is peaceful, I can still be peaceful. Like I like to think of, I think it was St. Catherine of Siena who talked about having like the little chapel in your heart. And so that's one of those tangible reminders that even if the outside world is chaotic. I can still be peaceful. Yeah, I think that's something that women need to hear again and again and again. we can still be peaceful in the midst of all of the chaos. I had a spiritual director once who, she called it holy chaos. Like, especially with kids. And so that's always stuck with me. this is your holy chaos. This isn't just chaos. This is holy. This is good. This is. Family, and it's meaningful if you allow it to be meaningful, but we have to be intentional about it and I love that you are just a perfect example of having a really solid foundational pair life. You said you were going to daily mass. I still can't get over the fact you said that you got your husband to pray a 54 day novena. I'm like, why am I, why am I That was his first novena and he was like, um, okay. But I also think it helped that we were dating at the time. It's like, my girlfriend wants me to do this. I guess I'll do it. Oh my gosh, that's just incredible to me. That's awesome. So Holy Spirit led, I'm sure. You had this really solid foundational prayer life. But even with that, like things happen. You have children, your whole world feels like it gets flipped upside down. And then so you even said it took time to get back to something that felt good and comfortable and felt like God was close again. And so I just want to remind anyone listening that whether you've never had it, you've never had a routine and a, what felt like a really solid foundational prayer life. Or if you have had it and it's been disrupted and you feel like you're never going to get it back. You can. You can start it. You can get it back. But just like Milena said, you have to prioritize. And be intentional about it and in a routine is so helpful and I always talk about especially with plan of life and I work on this with my clients too is that morning time. Hey friend, are you tired of never having five minutes to spend alone in prayer? Are you tired of waiting to have the courage to go where God is calling you or to have the skills to navigate life's constant curve balls without frustration and overwhelm. My dear friend, you don't have to be overwhelmed. You don't have to be exhausted all the time and you don't have to navigate the hardships alone. You're used to doing things alone and in fact, you're really good at getting things done. Yet God does not call us to journey alone. So if you're tired of trying to figure out the next first step, I invite you to prayerfully consider my 12 week one-on-one plan of life program. My program is uniquely designed around the goals and desires of each individual. Check out the link in the notes to find out more So I love that you have that because even though everything throughout your day can be prayerful, 100 percent agree with that, but we still have to have that time where it is quiet, where we can Have the opportunity to go a little bit deeper to be recollected and to listen. And so I, and you talked about starting with 30 minutes and then it's built to this longer amount of time. So just reminding anyone listening, it can start with five minutes, the five minutes that you're scrolling on your phone before bed. Maybe you're scrolling on your phone for 35 minutes, cut off five of that, go to bed five minutes earlier, get up five minutes earlier in the morning and use that. Five minutes to start having a prayer routine. 100%. No, I, I remember, I'm a bit of a perfectionist too, just feeling like I had failed because my prayer life looked nothing like it did before I had kids. And sometimes I'll even feel that way too. Like I should be able to get to daily mass multiple times a week. And another downside of living where we live is church is at least 30 minutes away from us. So it's not realistic for me to drag my one and two year old out the door, you know, multiple mornings a week to go to daily mass in this current phase of life. But what is realistic is me getting up a little bit earlier, and I remember it being so hard for me to break through that, mental wall because All I could think about was I'm a mom of little people who wake me up multiple times a night. I am not getting enough sleep. Why in the world would it make sense for me to wake up earlier? Like it was just like this mental wall that was saying, that's not a good idea. That's not a good idea. And I will say, I do try to take a 30 minute nap with my, when I put my kids down for a nap before I like get up and do other things while they're napping. Every day because I find that that helps me, but even if I don't get the nap in on the days where I wake up earlier and I do my prayer time versus the days where the odd days where maybe I sleep in or maybe something else happens, I always feel more revived and I'm able to show up better. That it's just, I can't even, I remember just thinking other people were crazy when they said they did that. And I'm not a morning person and I can fully attest that you don't have to be a morning person for it to help you. I 100 percent agree. I made excuses for so long, because I worked really late. I coached volleyball till, you know, late hours, especially in the fall. It was like, I cannot get up that early. I need my sleep. And I did need sleep, but just like you said, when I started making it a habit, when I started getting up every single morning, I did notice, I am, I'm a better person. I am a better mom. I'm a better wife. I was a better teacher, a better coach, all of those things. And I was able to maintain that peace. In the midst of all of the craziness, so much better. And, I love that you talked about just having grace with yourself about your current state in life of... It's not realistic for me to get to mass every single day. That doesn't necessarily work with our current family dynamic and what is possible, but you didn't just quit either. You didn't say, well, I can't get to mass. I'm not going to do anything. It's like, well, I can't get to mass, but I can't have this morning time. I can have this prayer time and I can be intentional about offering up what I can to God. And I think that's so important because we don't just want to say, Hey, Well, I can't do this part, so I'm just not going to do anything. we want to push ourselves a little bit beyond what is comfortable, but having someone else to help us, maintain reality of what is possible and not getting stuck in the I shoulds and just think about, I could do this. Isn't this realistic? Is this what God is asking me to do in this time or is God asking me to be present with my kids in a really loving way and teach them about what it looks like to have a prayer life in the everyday mundane things? Yes. I think that's so good. Okay. I'm curious, will you tell us a little bit about your writing? So you have a newsletter Sainthood. What kind of things do you write about? Yeah, so it took me a while to finally come up with this newsletter. It's, it's been like in the back of my mind for a few years, because I have so many things that I'm passionate about. And then it finally just all came together that I didn't have to just have one theme, because, and this is actually part of the reason I named it Stumbling to Sainthood, is the fact that I really want to emphasize the fact that we're all called to be saints. We sometimes forget that. We think that, oh, yeah, we'll go to heaven, but we don't see that that actually means we're a saint. If we get to heaven, we're a saint. So, the idea that, again, I'm a perfectionist, so that word stumbling even helps to remind me on a regular basis when I'm sitting down to write that this path to sainthood is not a perfection. It's just a path of continuously getting up and following Jesus. And so I've kind of combined all of my passions into it. And I usually have themes. So first Friday, I usually write about a reflection, it might be prayer life or, something about the sacraments. We did the blessing of the child in the womb recently. So I plan to write something about that because I just think it's beautiful that we have these beautiful rights in the faith and different blessings. My second Fridays I write about fertility awareness related things because I have that certification I'm working on. And also I found that there's so much freedom when we can hear what the church is teaching, when it talks about NFP and different things like that and the truth and the beauty that can be found in it. Cause it's such a taboo topic. Most of the time, third Wednesdays, I usually do something fake related like apologetics or something like that. Fourth Fridays. are, I've been talking about the domestic church and just building our domestic church because that's a big part of my life right now is reminding myself that my family is its own little domestic church. And then on the rare fifth Fridays, I usually do something healthy related. Because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and caring for our bodies is important. So as you can see, it's a, it's a really broad range of topics that we talk, I'll talk about. But, part of that is I hope that even one of the newsletters a month can reach different people, no matter what your state of life is, whether you're married or, and have kids and you're in a lot of the craziness I'm in right now, or you're in. Your own craziness. You're in college or you're, a consecrated single or you're religious or just wherever you are in life that there's something for you to relate to. Well, as someone who also has a lot of passions, I appreciate variety and you still have this very overarching theme though. It's still going back to the roots of our faith, regardless of which of those topics you mentioned and just the heart of God and being able to share that with others. What's your favorite message to share or what message do you feel like people need to hear the most right now? Okay, so I just had a minute to think about it and I feel like the biggest message I found myself sharing a lot lately is Again, no matter what your state in life We're all called to spiritually mother or father in some way. So even if you're never a physical mother or father, you are a spiritual mother and you're a spiritual father to somebody. And so being able to look around the world and see who is God calling me to spiritually mother and father, because I find in this world of distractions, it's so easy for us to get caught up in, I just need to focus on my kids. Or I'm going to pour this love that's inside of me into, nothing wrong with pets, I love pets, but like, I'm going to pour it into my pet dog or whatever, and I'm going to give that animal the love that ultimately I'm actually being called to give to people in my life, whether they're nieces and nephews, or they're my next door neighbor's kids, or they're even the older lady down the street who is lonely, like, I feel like it's so easy for us to recognize the love that we feel called to give, but it's really hard for us to step back from ourselves and say, who am I being called a spiritually mother and father with this? So, that's my big message. That's a wonderful question. For anyone listening to Take to Prayer, who is God calling me to be a spiritual mother to or a spiritual father to? You talked about being a perfectionist. What would you say to the people who, I know I work with a lot of clients like this and this is something I continuously struggle with and I really I've grown so much in mm-hmm. and I've had to keep reminding me myself of that, of how much I've grown, not looking at where I'm not yet mm-hmm. but for the people who are like, I I, but I wanna go all in and I wanna serve all of these people and I wanna do all of these things. Oh, yeah. What do you do to help yourself? Center on just one, just focusing on one thing and doing it really well instead of many things that can then become distractions because when there's two goods. Yeah. How do we know which one to choose? I think it all, when we, when we break it down, it all comes down to fair discernment first. And so if I'm talking to, I am very much this way. I struggle with this a lot. But because of that, I befriend a lot of people who struggle with it a lot. So it's nice because we can call each other out on this. And I will just say, okay, before you agree to anything, because you know, a lot of times it's, oh yeah, I'll sign up to be a part, I'll help lead this retreat, and I'll help do this, and I'll help do this, and oh yes, I would love to watch your kids this day for you, or you know, all these different things, to first be able to step back, and even if it's someone asking you to be a part of something, to first say, no, I would love to be a part of this, but I need to Step back and pray. If this is something I'm actually being called to, and I'm very much a list maker. So I will sit down and I'll write a list of all the different things that are good that I want to be a part of. And then I will say, realistically, what can I actually do? And then I will sit down and say, okay, God, like, hopefully you have enough time to do this because every situation is different, but maybe even say, okay, I'm going to take a week to just pray about this and to see what am I consistently feeling at peace about. And what's making me feel a little bit anxious, even if it's just a slight bit of anxiety popping up, that's usually a sign that that's something you're not necessarily being called to. And that's, that's popped up so much in my life. There have been so many times where. I have had to say no or to turn away from something that was a good thing, but God was calling me to a different good. Just because this isn't something you're called to right now, doesn't mean it's not good. It just means that maybe it's not the thing that's going to bring you closest to God. Yeah. That just reminded me, I had a client tell me recently, and I'm sure she would be okay with me sharing it or I wouldn't say it, but, her thought that she brought to our session was it's okay to leave the good for the great and. I really love that. And taking this to prayer, my husband has been so essential in helping me because now, after getting married, it was like, well, I need to talk to my husband. So at least it gave me that little bit of a pause. And now it's like, okay, well, I need to take this to prayer. I need to actually think about it because I do get excited about new opportunities and new challenges, but then I can put too many things on my plate. And that's what I see a lot with clients too. We're so excited. We're. Calerics or melancholics and we want all of these really great things or even sanguins and it's this looks shiny and pretty. This looks shiny and pretty. And now we have too much. And so really sitting with what is reasonable and what is the piece that comes. So, like you said, taking a certain topic and like praying as if it's happened a certain way and what piece does that bring, and then praying as if it happened the opposite way, what piece does that bring or not bring, I think is so helpful. And then just letting it go and, and being confident in your no. Yes, I think what's hard about saying no, especially when, like you're saying, choosing the great over the good is sometimes you can get into a place where you're like, but I'm the only one who can do this. The reality is, is everybody has been given gifts, and it's not that you're replaceable, but If God is calling you to say no to something, he's going to bring someone else to fill in that role. They're not going to be abandoned just because you said no. Yes. When I was leaving teaching this past year, there was another teacher who was also leaving. And... I was kind of like, oh, it was hard to let go of just not only my classroom, but coaching because these girls I had been coaching volleyball for years now. And so it was hard to think of turning that over. But this other teacher, we were sitting at lunch and the new teacher had got hired and she was going to take over my coaching role. And My friend was just like, Kylie, this is such an incredible opportunity that we just gave this other woman, doesn't that feel so good, this opportunity that we gave her, I'm like, you're right, now she has this opportunity to let her God given gifts flourish in a way, and now I have an opportunity to let some of my gifts that weren't being utilized be utilized Now, and that really is beautiful, but we have to be willing to let go for that to happen and not so focused on the self reliance of, I'm the best person for this job. So I think that's, that's so great. If you had to come up with three prayer tips. that you could offer because you talked about meeting, you know, anyone where they're at, any state of life. What would they be? What are your top three go to prayer tips? Yeah. Okay. So my first one is one that I, I don't feel like I really touched on. And I feel like it is still relevant, even if you don't have like a family you are creating right now, or even even if you're living by yourself, I still feel like it's helpful. But to pray with your family. So if you don't have a family that you're living with right now, to find a group of friends to pray with maybe once a week to have a prayer group, because prayer and community is important, but if you do have a family, which a lot of people do, praying with your family at a set time, every single day is so foundational and I praying for meals is important, but like for us, we pray at the end of the day and we have a series of prayers and we pray like my. Husband will say, do some sort of extemporaneous prayer, but then, we're also doing, we're talking about 54 day rosary novena, we're in the middle of the 12 year novena right now, and I was a little daunted when we started it, but it's really awesome because We're praying the same prayers every night and the boys fall asleep to it and it's like, it's just, it really roots our family having these series of prayers that we're doing. And it helps to continue to build this foundational faith for your family and for yourself that you have these people you're praying with. The second thing is something we talked about a lot, but really just. To give yourself grace. I've seen so many posts on Facebook groups that I'm in and it's like, I'm a mom. I just had a baby two weeks ago and I'm really struggling to find time for prayer. And it's like, oh my gosh, you just had a baby two weeks ago. Like, take it. That is your prayer That is your prayer when you are up nursing the baby at night and your brain is too tired to pray, just say, I offer this up for something. And just know that in your season of life, God's gonna meet you where you're at and don't try to jump into something really big. Out of, out of nowhere to say, okay, this is where I'm at right now. And I'm exhausted. I'm going to go to the two weeks ago. I had a baby thing. Cause I've seen them so much, like even just friends reaching out when they're newly postpartum and just saying that they're struggling and just acknowledge that like your life can be a prayer, obviously, ideally you have that one on one time with God where you are alone and there's going to be a season of life probably really soon within the next couple of months where you can do that. But if you're in the mid. Just of chaos right now, just remembering that everything you do can be a prayer. So offering that up. Um, and then my third tip is, to really spend time in the word at some point on a regular basis, preferably every day, but I have found just so much growth in my spiritual life and in my ability to relate to other Christian brothers and sisters in a loving way by spending a regular amount of time in the word. My, okay. My in laws are Southern Baptists, and when I can come back with them and talk about the Bible, like, really knowledgably, honestly, it helps them be more open to the Catholic faith. Like, they all, they've started mass with us, and they've started doing, other things, and, so I think that, as Catholics, us being really knowledgeable in the Word and finding Jesus in the Word helps. Our personal relationship, but it also helps us to be lights to others. Those are amazing. So I'm just going to recap them really quick. So praying with your family. Um, this is interesting because you talked about having a set time every single day. So I've mentioned before Dan Burke has a book called into the deep and he talks about, sacred space. which you said you have a prayer corner, sacred time, which is like having a set time every single day where you're going to show up. So I think that's important. And then sacred intention, which you've talked a lot about intentions, like certain things that you're praying for your 54 day novena, or now you're doing a 12 year. And I think that is so cool. So you've hit on all of those. I need to read that book. I've heard about it, but I haven't read it yet. So I'm a big Dan Burke fan. We just did a book study on his book, Spiritual Warfare and Discernment of Spirits. and he has a new one out right now that I'm excited to read. So yes. And then, Father Jacques Felipe, if you know him, he also. I think I have three or four of his books, so I don't remember which one it is, but he talks about something similar. He words it a little bit differently, but kind of the same concept. He talks about those two. The second one you said was giving yourself grace. So huge. We are so hard on ourselves. We are so hard on ourselves sometimes. And there is a fine line between being slothful, like not being intentional about making time for prayer and then, just being so hard on ourselves about, I should have done this, I should have done this, but that's the beauty of always just begin again and you just start over. I'll give an example this morning. I normally get up at 4. 30 and I was so tired. I was up late last night and I was like, I need to sleep. But I, it wasn't a good sleep because in my mind it was like, I need to be up. I don't want to miss my prayer time. So I finally did get up and my prayer time was a little bit shorter. And even while I was in it, I was like, Lord, I am so tired. I think I'm having another allergic reaction and my immune system overloads and then it just kind of shuts down and I'm very fatigued. And I was sitting there and I was like. Lord, I'm probably going to fall asleep right here, but if I fall asleep, just know that this is my prayer today because this is the best that I can do. So for the tired mom, if that's the best you can do, God sees you. He sees that intention and that is really powerful. So Offer it up and give yourself grace. And then the third one you said was spending time in the Word. I cannot love this enough because, like you said, as Catholics, it's not that we don't hear scripture. We do. But sitting alone with it is so helpful and really immersing yourself and getting to the point where, I'm doing the spiritual exercises and I might have, Five verses and I might spend days on those five verses and sometimes it's like ah it's the same thing, but there's always something new my insight to the holy family yes, just sitting with a phrase like not even the all five verses just sitting with a couple of words and sitting with those words long enough that we can allow God to speak to us through them. It's so amazing. And so I love that. And then the ability to also use this as an evangelization tool, because you're able to have conversations with other people. I think that's so, I love that. Such a stigma out there, especially with other Christian denominations that Catholics don't know the Bible. And like you said, we hear it, we hear the whole thing every three years if you do, the daily readings and stuff, but just because we hear it doesn't mean we, we truly hear it. And I've just found so much freedom in my ability to defend my faith by being able to say, yep, like, This is what it says in the Bible and, being able to even just discuss biblical stories with my other Christian brothers and sisters has been, has been really great for me and for my relationship with them. Do you have any particular, and maybe you don't, but like a particular Bible or any sort of like devotional that helps you to understand what you are reading? Because some people will open the Bible and they're like, I... I don't know what this means. So I think you mentioned Bible in a year earlier. Yeah. So I did. So I listened to it the first year, just me like walking with my little baby. and then the second year, me and my husband listened to it together in the evenings. And then one of the things I do is I'm one of the editors for catechism in a year. So I'm actually going back through and editing a lot of the transcripts for Bible in a year right now, because they never had anyone originally like super edit them. So, I'm going through it again for a third time, and every time I've gone through it, I've grasped something different from it, and I just think it's an invaluable resource, even if you can't sit down with the Bible with you and read it, if you're just listening to it, there were so many things that, you know, difficult verses from, like, Sirach has some difficult parenting verses in there that can be a little confusing if you can't look at it from the whole context. The multiple laws that happen in Leviticus and then even the, where they'll talk about, you know, there's that, that verse where it talks about wives submit to your husbands and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like I had never looked at it as a whole and now I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's not just saying wives submit to your husbands. It's talking about how you both work together to imitate the church and Christ's love for the church. Um, and so, yeah, he, Father Mike just does a great job at explaining it and really like lay person language, so you don't have to be a theologian to understand him, and I've just found it to be, to be a great resource. I love that. And the two that you, the two, like keys that you brought up. So Ephesians, which is, I think the one that you were referencing, about submitting to your husband's, I see that one come up all the time in like Catholic wife groups or mom groups. And then literally just this morning that you talked about, Sarah, that one I saw on. social media post this morning of someone saying, I don't understand this. I'm really struggling. How can this be? Like, how is this not contradicting everything else in the Bible? And there's like 50 some replies. Don't take it literal. You're not supposed to beat your children. Yeah. Look at the whole picture. Yeah. That's so funny. Oh my gosh. So yeah, it's like looking at the whole picture and that is the beauty of, you know, the three legs of the Catholic Church of having some guidance and how we are, how we are called to understand and interpret these things when they are difficult. And that doesn't mean that they aren't going to still speak to us individually. And we aren't going to be able to take insights as the Holy Spirit kind of works through us to understand them. But. There is this overarching picture and you talked about, you know, if you're not doing the daily readings, you don't get the whole Bible in every three years. You're missing so much if you don't do those daily readings, but many of us don't know that growing up. I mean, I didn't, I didn't realize how much I was missing until I started doing my morning prayer and, you know, like, or if you have the Magnificat or something like that, where you can really. Go into it. Um, another resource I recommend often is The Better Part by Father John Bartunek. It's just the Gospels, but his reflections I think are very helpful too. Uh, so if you're more of a visual person and Bible in a year is harder because it's auditory, that's another like visual representation that I think is really great too. Okay, this has been amazing. I'm so grateful for you. And for all of your work, um, as you've been editing Catechism in a Year, Bible in a Year, is there any, do you have like a favorite verse or something from the Catechism that really stands out to you that you want to leave people with today? Oh my gosh, this is a hard question. You can take a minute. You don't have to answer right away. Um, let's see, okay. So I've got two things. Um, the Bible, okay, I've actually got three, I've got three things I'm saying, as far as like Bible in a year, I can't emphasize enough the whole scene, the picture, the Bible as a whole, like being able to look at the Old Testament and say, Oh my gosh, this is where God was slowly revealing himself and all the details like this year, especially as I've been going through it. I've just the details are popping up and so in my own life where I'm wondering, you know, hey God, why, why haven't you answered this prayer? Hey, God, I feel like this is kind of you're leaving this kind of blank for me or you're making me really have to trust a lot in you right now. I can look at the story of the Israelites and I can say, oh, my gosh, look at all the ways that they didn't see God working in the details. And I know he's working details in my life. So that's my thing on Bible in a year. And then catechism in a year, the catechism is so dense. Like it is so dense. Um, but I also can't recommend listening to catechism in a year enough because I have just been blown away by the beauty of our faith as I've been going through the catechism. Um, like the, I think it's the first paragraph, God's plan of sheer goodness. Like he has a plan of sheer goodness. For you, his relationship with you. Um, but then also like being able to look and see the details in the beauty of our individual calling. Like when I was reading, going through the section on marriage, um, just because I'm called to marriage, just being able to look at that and be like, Oh my gosh, the beauty of the sacrament of marriage or the beauty of the sacrament of baptism. And it just gets me more and more excited about the little details and the little things that we're called to. So. Um, I just think the two of those things, like really being able to know this is what the church teaches, it can help us amidst the chaos of the world where they try to make what we teach, what the church teaches all blurry, like they try to skew it. And there's so many people screaming things against the church right now, and that's always been there, but it's really, really loud right now. And to be able to just go through it and say, wow, this is God's plan of sheer goodness for us. And look at the beauty and all the ways that the church has already thought about all of our questions. Like, nothing that you're thinking about has been unanswered, I love that. And I think that something that people don't understand if they've never opened the catechism is that it is accessible to you. It's not written in a manner that is so lofty that you're going to look at it, like, it's not. St. Thomas Aquinas, you're not going to read something and be like, I don't know what this means. I really love that about the catechism. I know years ago, I never would have opened that book in my life. Yes. You don't have to read it all at once, right? Just Look at a specific section. And if I remember right, catechism starts with what is our purpose? Is that what I could be wrong, but yeah. So it's, it's like talking, it starts with like really about what do we believe, what is our relationship with God? And then it leads into the sacraments and then it leads into the moral life. And then it leads into prayer, which like, I love the organization of it because at the beginning it's like, what do we believe, but with that, what's our purpose? What's our relationship with God like having that in personal encounter with Jesus and then a deeper personal encounter with the sacraments and then we get into the moral life, um, which they talk about on the episode where they're talking about the moral life, but it talks about we're not supposed to go straight up and be like, this is what you're doing wrong. And that's not what God does to us either. Goal is to have a personal encounter with us, then to lead him into deeper relationship, lead us into deeper relationship, and then it is to like, this is your calling and this is how you can truly live this out. So I just think it's beautiful. Yeah. I love, and one of the things in my Ignatian exercises is it talks about God doesn't. Reveal the deepness of your sin until you first know that he loves you, like you have to have that relationship first. So I think that's awesome. Thank you so much for being here This was incredible and it was a blessing to have you And maybe we could do it again sometime because I know that there's so much the depth of your knowledge especially after all this editing that you're doing foundational Per life that you have for you and your family. I think that's such an inspiration and your witness is beautiful. So thank you for all of your intentions in the mountains and, showing us the beauty of a simple life. Thank you. Hey friends, don't miss out on Molina's incredible newsletter, stumbling to sainthood. You can find the link to that right in the show notes, and also be sure to go send her some love on her brand new Instagram account@stumbling.to. Dot St. Hood. Again, that stumbling to St. HUD. Over on instagram and be sure to thank her for all of the incredible knowledge and wisdom that she shared here today i'll see you all next time Beautiful souls. Thank you again for journeying with me If you have been blessed by this episode or any others, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Remember. Stay persistent in prayer and in god's greatness Great fruits of grace will bless you abundantly and if you haven't yet Be sure to go download your free daily examine for every temperament right on my website@wwwdotkyliemheine.com.