Why You Struggle to Rest in God (Even When You Believe)

~ Does your relationship with God feel like something you’re trying to achieve?

If you have ever wondered why doing more and working harder doesn’t result in the deeper relationship you desire with God, there’s actually a really good explanation for why this happens and a way through.

In this episode, I sit down with Kari Eliza, the voice behind the Instagram account Held Right Here, where she helps parents share God with their children in ways that feel connected and deeply relational. 

Kari is an American living in Norway with her Norwegian husband and two kids, and she brings one of the most honest and tender perspectives on faith I have encountered in a long time.

What started for Kari in wanting to support her highly sensitive daughter became a healing journey of her own, and it changed everything about how she experiences God.

This conversation is for you if you have always believed the right things but still feel like you are working hard to earn God’s love and approval.

Here is a glimpse into our conversation:

• Why growing up in a Christian home can still produce a performance posture with God, even when your parents genuinely loved Jesus
• How striving shows up in our bodies, not just our behavior, and why renewing your mind alone may not be enough
• What it actually feels like when your nervous system begins to exhale in God's presence, and why that changes everything

Kari's story didn’t have a quick fix. It was a two-year journey of slow, steady transformation. And it is one of the most hopeful things I have heard.

If you are tired of your relationship with God feeling like something you have to manage, this episode is a good place to start.

If you are pursuing a God-shaped dream and doing it mostly alone, I want you to know there is a place for you. Dream Believers is my online community for Christian women who are ready to stop waiting on their dreams and want to start moving instead. 

Come find your people: 👉merrittonsa.com/dreambelievers.

🔗 Connect with Kari Eliza on Instagram: @held.right.here

The Devoted Dreamers podcast is hosted by Merritt Onsa — Christian life coach, mentor, speaker, and founder of the Dream Believers community. New episodes drop every week for the woman who believes her best chapter isn't behind her.

Sign up for Dream Believers. Just $49/month or $490 for the year (get 2 months free!) 

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Produced by Jonathan R. Clauson.
Theme music by Reaktor Productions.
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Transcript

Kari Eliza [00:00:00]:

I remember when I finally like clicked, this is what the scriptures are talking about. Like, my burden is light, my cup overfloweth. Right? I was like, I get like, yes. Now I actually know what they're talking about because it started to feel true in my body.

Merritt Onsa [00:00:23]:

Welcome my sister in Christ to the Devoted Dreamers podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Merritt Onsa. And in this season, instead of interviews, I've invited different visiting co-hosts to join me for a series of episodes around a particular topic that I think would be relevant to you as you go after a God shaped dream. Early this year, I discovered today's co-host, Kari Eliza on Instagram. God met me in so many of the topics she shared and I knew I had to share her with you on the show. Kari Eliza is the voice behind Held right here where she helps parents share God with their children in ways that feel safe, connected and deeply relational. She is passionate about the intersection of attachment, nervous system, science and faith and how our earliest experiences of connection shape the way we experience God's love. Kari Eliza gently brings these ideas to life in everyday language, helping families move away from pressure and performance and into a faith that feels like rest.

Merritt Onsa [00:01:29]:

The topics we'll be covering over the next four episodes go straight to the heart for anyone longing to hear from God, especially as it relates to your God shaped dream. This episode on why you struggle to rest in God even when you believe will help you understand how a posture of striving makes your relationship with God feel heavy. And this episode will help you begin to see how he's inviting you into something much more restful and. And relational. Okay, let's get right into it. Hi Kari Eliza. Welcome to the Devoted Dreamers podcast.

Kari Eliza [00:02:03]:

Hi Merritt. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this. It's going to be amazing. I know we've been trying to get this going for several weeks.

Merritt Onsa [00:02:15]:

Much anticipated. I think even months. I think it's been months. Well, let's get acquainted a little bit. Help everybody listening know a little bit about you and where you are in the world because I think that's an interesting piece. You're my first. I think you might be my first overseas guest.

Kari Eliza [00:02:34]:

Yeah. So I'm Kari Eliza and I am an American. But I live in Norway just outside Oslo with my Norwegian husband and two kids. I have lived here for, oh gosh, I think it's nine years now. So I'm starting to feel more and more Norwegian. Every time I go back to the States, I feel less and Less American. And so that's a very interesting experience. But, yeah, I'm loving it here and loving raising kids here. It's a really different culture, so I'm sure we can maybe get into that a little bit later as well.

Merritt Onsa [00:03:14]:

Do you see what I brought today? I don't know if. Can you read that?

Kari Eliza [00:03:17]:

Lefsa? Yeah. You have Norwegian family. Oh, that's so fun. I do.

Merritt Onsa [00:03:23]:

I was thinking about it this morning. This mug says, you know, know you're Norwegian when you eat lefse for Christmas. So this is my dad's, but we do eat lefse most Christmases. I'm 25% Norwegian. And so there's just a sweet something about getting to meet you and talk to you across, you know, not the entire globe, but a good chunk of it.

Kari Eliza [00:03:45]:

And so fun.

Merritt Onsa [00:03:46]:

Yeah. I've just been drawn to you and your story. So tell us a little bit more. Like, what does your average day look like? Like, what do you do as an American living in Norway with your Norwegian family?

Kari Eliza [00:04:00]:

Same as every person, probably. Same as my sister is living in the States. I have two young kids. So, of course, it's a lot of momming, and I still do some coaching. So I grew a coaching business that's my, like, primary focus for several years when I first moved to Norway because I was kind of unemployable. You speak the language, right? Yeah. I left a, like, a really successful corporate career in the States when I moved here, and then everything came to a halt, which was completely like, yeah, God had a reason for that. I needed that time.

Kari Eliza [00:04:42]:

So I started a business and started to hustle in that business and strive in that business, just like I did before. And then God sent me on a healing journey with my daughter that we can get into. So now I'm basically a mom and I am writing a book, and I am also. Yeah, I don't think I've told you. I don't think I know about that later. And I run the Instagram account held right here, which is where I teach on the connection between attachment science and the nervous system and Christian faith so that we can really feel safer with God. We can understand his love more deeply, and we can pass that on to the next generation. So I talk a lot about how we can share God with our littles in ways that support attachment and fit the way they're naturally designed to grow and thrive.

Merritt Onsa [00:05:47]:

Okay, I'm so glad you brought that up, because this is how I found you, and I think it's really sweet and also a bit unexpected because while the littles season for my kids doesn't seem that long ago, mine are 11 and 7. And so I don't know why Instagram was like, you would like this account. Maybe it's the God piece.

Merritt Onsa [00:06:14]:

But yeah, it was early January or maybe even late December when I started to see your posts more often. And yeah, I'm just so drawn to the work that you're doing. And that's why I wanted to have you on as a co-host here because I just feel like there's a ton that we can not only learn from your experience, but I think to help us draw closer to God. You've helped me draw closer to God. A stranger on the Internet, but he can use all sorts of things. And so I think one of the first things that came to mind as we were talking about, you know, what could this conversation look like? You know. Yes. To talk about the things that you're studying and learning as you work with attachment and stuff with your daughter.

Merritt Onsa [00:07:14]:

How do we translate that to adult women? And I think maybe that's also where pieces of this really spoke to me because I think for a long time I lived in shame and probably I didn't even know to call it that, but I had a very kind of performance-oriented perfectionism, like way of functioning and even early on way of seeing my relationship with God. Like, if I do the right things, then God will love me. I know that doesn't really make sense, like logically, but there were still behavior that I could see in my life where it's like, why am I acting? Why am I believing this about God? Why am I. So, yeah, so that's what we want to get into for this first component of these episodes together. So I think my question is just in observing women, probably men too, but women, we're pretty hard on ourselves and, and, and it's a struggle. And I see a lightness in you in contrast to that.

Kari Eliza [00:08:22]:

So I think that it might be helpful for people to hear a little bit of a backstory. I'll. I'll try to keep it short because I could just go on and on. You know, the someone's journey has all sorts of twists and turns, but I think it's helpful for people to just get maybe some deeper cont. So that you know where the, where the transformation came from and how it happened. Because I have not always had a lightness to me, that is a very, I would say, recent thing as of about two years ago. So I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. In Marietta, in the Bible Belt, right.

Kari Eliza [00:09:04]:

So I was in a Christian home with parents who were really, really passionate about their faith, genuinely loved Jesus. So I spent a lot of time in church. I went to a Christian school. I was, you know, part of college ministry. Like I did, like the whole upbringing and so I heard all the right things. Jesus loves you no matter what. You can come to him with anything. You know, your sins are washed white as snow, all of it.

Kari Eliza [00:09:35]:

And my parents meant it, I believed it. I've always been a Christian as long as I can remember it. But it was a cognitive experience and there was a strong emphasis in my family on obedience and a seriousness around sin. It was almost like a sin management lens, like looking back. And it took up a lot more space than joy, delight, freedom in God, freedom, and that delight in each other as a family. So even though I knew the truth, it didn't land in my nervous system. And so without realizing it, I was a very self-sufficient child, teenager, adult, because I didn't have this internal sense of like, exhale, right? Like I don't have to prove anything. Even though I was told I didn't have to prove anything.

Kari Eliza [00:10:33]:

And now I know that when we don't feel that like, exhale in our nervous systems, we start controlling. So for me, that showed up as achievement. So on the outside, I was thriving, right? Like, I was a well behaved, sweet little girl. My parents were always, like, I remember hearing when I was little, people just like raving about me and my three sisters’ behavior. Like we were just so good. When I was a teenager, I was like captain of the cheerleading squad, top of my class, right? Like in corporate, I. I was like climbing the corporate ladder. Then I started two companies.

Kari Eliza [00:11:16]:

So like on the outside it was very neat and tidy, but underneath it, I carried a lot of pressure that I didn't even, like, know I had. And then, you know, God did something really interesting. He put me on a mega yacht that traveled around the world as my first job. Traveled in 40 different countries and worked with people from 40 different nationalities. And one of them was my Norwegian husband. And so he introduced me to this sweet, you know, strange Norwegian man. And, you know, long story short, you know, we fall in love, we get married, I move here. And this slower, more relational culture was a big contrast to me.

Kari Eliza [00:12:03]:

Like, I immediately saw it. I thought they were like the laziest human beings on the planet. I was like, what is going on here? And it slowly brought my nervous system out of that striving and it was really Interesting to see my husband's family, like the extended family who are not believers, be so relational and present with one another. That was really fascinating to me. So I began to kind of unwind my nervous system. I worked with a nervous system coach and that's how I got really fascinated with trauma informed nervous system coaching, which I did later. But the turning point came when I became a parent because my first daughter, she's highly sensitive and now we know that she's ADHD. So we were really struggling as a family to keep her regulated and to understand her and meet her needs.

Kari Eliza [00:12:56]:

And so we sought out support through therapy and I started studying child development and attachment attachment and how it connected to the nervous system. And I went on such a healing journey of my own. I didn't think I would be doing so much inner work. I thought I was just going to be, you know, figuring out my daughter. But it really healed me in the best of ways. And I began to understand how attachment science and the child parent relationship is such a beautiful picture of our relationship with our heavenly Father. And I began to understand like where maybe some of my dysfunction was and what it was supposed to look like. It has just been the most beautiful journey as I have applied the tools and like remit God not as someone focused on my behavior, but like this safe, present, deeply loving father that I like.

Kari Eliza [00:13:52]:

I just rest and exhale in. I remember when I, it finally like clicked. I was like, oh, this is what the scriptures are talking about. Like my burden is light, my cup overfloweth. Right? I was like, I get like, yes, now I actually know what they're talking about because it started to feel true in my body. So hopefully that gets, gives a little context. I, I didn't. This has been a journey and I honestly did not have like my major aha moment until about, yeah, two years ago.

Kari Eliza [00:14:30]:

I was that striving, perfectionist, people pleasing, you know. Yeah, yeah, just like tightly wound, you know, woman.

Merritt Onsa [00:14:39]:

And maybe that's why God introduced me to you. Because I think at the end of last year I really felt that, that I had pushed myself so hard in 2025. And I was just reading in my journal kind of from, you know, December to early January, like processing in that space of time, like I don't want to continue to live this way. And then all of a sudden there you were. He was like, observe, there's another way.

Kari Eliza [00:15:19]:

So I forget what your first question was. It was about being hard on yourself, right? Yes, yeah, yeah. So I obviously was hard on myself for most of my life, even though I didn't actually know I was being hard on myself because I think we hear all the right things. Especially like, if you grew up in a Christian home. Not all Christian homes are, you know, I mean, there's a. They look all. They look different from each other. I'm finding out that out more and more as I have an Instagram account and I engage with different types of people.

Kari Eliza [00:15:53]:

But often we hear a lot of the right things, but it doesn't always translate to, like, our felt sense or our behavior. But I don't think we're hard on ourselves because something's wrong with us. I think it's because, like, I don't think it's a cognitive decision. I think it's because we learned that it's not safe to just be and it. And that is because we're either taught explicitly or subtly, like on accident, like my parents did, that striving is what God wants from us. Right. So we end up striving to be faithful, loving, kind, generous. I went to a Christian school and like, their slogan was like, servant leadership, you know. Right.

 Kari Eliza [00:16:37]:

Which is a beautiful thing. But like, right. We strive, strive to stay away from sinful behavior. But once you understand a little bit about attachment and how the nervous system works, you realize that like, a striving posture cannot be how God designed it. It just can't because it's just not how our bodies function and, and how relationship and trust is formed. And once you understand that, then you can start to feel safe being and like resting into something and then that. That hard, like perfectionism or like inner critic that kind of falls away automatically. You don't have to, like, try anymore to get rid of that, if that makes sense.

 Merritt Onsa [00:17:34]:

Yeah, yeah. Something just popped into my head, so I swim a couple mornings a week. And when I'm in the pool, like, all I do is count my laps, which is a restful thing for me, like, just to like, be in the water. There's something different about being in water than in just walking around in air. And that made me think about, like, oh, being in nature, being in the mountains, going on a hike. Like, you can strive for those things, you know, like, I'm going to climb a 14er.

Kari Eliza [00:18:14]:

Yeah.

Merritt Onsa [00:18:15]:

But that's not where I'm at in my life. And so it's interesting to me to think about, like, God's like, his world, his creation. It has a sense of this. Like, not the striving posture, but a restful exhale, be present with him posture and that's really helpful to me in this conversation I think to also know that where my body is, I will be inclined to move or think in a certain way. Like okay, I'm at my desk, you know, like this is a place where I will be inclined to strive. How do I be aware of that and accept and acknowledge like what is he actually calling me to, you know?

Kari Eliza [00:19:00]:

Beautiful.

Merritt Onsa [00:19:02]:

Yeah, yeah.

Kari Eliza [00:19:03]:

Because so much, so much of what's out there in like the self-help world and like especially the business world. Right. It's about like it is striving metrics and goals. Right. Like I, you know, lists and I used to operate off that too.

Merritt Onsa [00:19:23]:

Yeah.

Kari Eliza [00:19:25]:

So it's hilarious how relaxed I am now. But, but it really is safe, right? To find this more like this. It's regulation is what it is. It's when the body feels. Stops bracing and stops self-protecting and knows that like everything is just as it should be. So I can relax. I don't have to, to scan the environment. I don't have to be hyper vigilant about other people's thoughts or what's going to go wrong or anything like that.

Kari Eliza [00:20:03]:

I can just rest and be So a really beautiful way to start, I think even before really understanding attachment is just to start to experience what regulation feels like. That was like a really big eye opener for me when I started working with a nervous system coach. I, it took, it took her like three weeks to talk me into the fact that I, she was like, you're not regulated. I'm like, yes I am. That's so funny. Yeah, like I hadn't, I had no idea. I think it's like the water you swim in. So it's not like, you know, dysregulated, chronically dysregulated people are not walking around like knowing it.

Kari Eliza [00:20:48]:

It's just the way your body feels naturally. And so if you can start to, you know, receive support to actually experience what your body feels like in a regulated state, it shifts a lot because you're like, oh, this is what it feels like. And then you can start to repeat that and bring that posture into other environments like you're saying. And the more you're regulated, the safer your body feels to be be regulated. So at first it'll tell you that it's like irresponsible waste of time. You know, I think the enemy can also tell you that it's like woo-woo or like you know, new age to like, you know, be regulated and not in fight or flight. So you'll have all these messages. And I remember in the beginning, my coach was just like, you know, your brain will try to keep you in the state that it's comfortable being in because that's safety for the body, right? What it, what it's used to, but that's a really beautiful place to start, is just to build more safety.

Kari Eliza [00:21:55]:

And when I started doing that, God started whispering to me. And it was really beautiful because I was, I wasn't like, you know, like fallen or anything. I wasn't like, you know, falling away from my faith or anything. But I just wasn't in a daily practice with him. I was just kind of distracted in my 20s and moving to a different country, couldn't go to church because I didn't understand the language. So it wasn't really, I didn't have a very close relationship at the time. And he just, you know, hello, I'm here. You know, when I got regulated, you know, I think that one of the other things that, as we think about why are we so hard on ourselves? One of the things that we do is we follow like a cognitive model for that.

Kari Eliza [00:22:53]:

So we try to. Which it's, it's not a bad thing. So I do this right? I listen to affirming songs, I read scripture, I say scripture over myself, I pray scripture over myself and my family's. It's not a, it's not a bad thing. It's a wonderful thing. But it is a cognitive approach to it. And I think that like, we are so much more than just our thoughts. And so I think that when we understand what is keeping our body in these, like, survival states, this feeling of like, not being able to rest and exhale, when we start to understand that, like, get an education about what's happening biologically, it can help some of it fall away.

Merritt Onsa [00:23:41]:

We've been told again and again, and scripture teaches about renewing our minds. And yes, of course we should believe and do what scripture says. But Kari Eliza helps us see that there's more to the cognitive or thinking approach to our relationship with God. There's a lot we can learn from attachment science about the role our emotions and our connection to God play in our relationship with him. And that's what exactly what Kari Eliza and I are talking about in the next episode, part two of this four part series with her. In the meantime, you can follow Kari Eliza at Held. Right. Here on Instagram for a glimpse into her work and the topics we'll be covering next week on the Devoted Dreamers podcast. If you have a God shaped dream, you were never meant to pursue it alone. Dream Believers is my virtual community for Christian women who are done waiting on the sidelines and ready to make real progress together. If that sounds like something you need, come find us at merrittonsa.com/dreambelievers 

I'll see you next time.