4. How Catholic Coaching Transforms Your Faith and Life with Karla Fitz, The Catholic Life Coach

In this inspiring and heartfelt conversation,  Karla Fitz and I discuss the transformative power of Catholic life coaching in both of our lives. We discuss God's plan of how we met and how he called us to work together in wonderful and unexpected ways!  We explore the importance of aligning with God, the journey of dreaming again, and the role of on purpose thoughts and beliefs in co-creating with God the holy desires He puts in our hearts. Karla shares her personal journey with weight loss and how it ultimately led her to embracing her calling as a Catholic coach. The discussion highlights the differences between life coaching, therapy, and spiritual direction, and how Catholic coaching aims to put God at the center of everything. 

Topics covered:

-How Catholic coaching helps individuals align with their true calling and future possibilities.

-How to dream again with God.

-How on purpose thoughts and beliefs significantly influence emotions,  actions, and results, and how that differs from victim-based thinking, which keeps you stuck and in pain and fear.

-The differences between coaching, therapy, and spiritual direction.

-Living in God's holy alignment requires embracing discomfort, change, and  updated beliefs.

-Holy desires from God are often aligned with our gifts and charisms, persistent, and how following them can bring others to Christ.

-The journey of coaching creates space for more freedom in relationships, greater joy, and simplicity, and ultimately greater intimacy with God.

 Connect with Karla:

Follow Karla on Instagram @thecatholiclifecoach

Karla's website and offerings

Connect with Carrie:

Follow Carrie on Intragram @livingwholeandholy

If you'd like to share your conversion or reversion story and be a guest on the podcast, please email Carrie @ livingwholeandholy@gmail.com

Transcript

Welcome, Karla, to The Living Whole and Holy Podcast. I'm so excited to have you on the show today. I've been so excited to share you with my guests and share about the journey that we've had together for this. This week was one year exactly that we started working together. And I'm just thrilled to have you on the show to introduce Catholic life coaching. And I'm just so grateful for the opportunities that we've had together and all the wisdom and all the ways that you've brought me to living to a higher level with Christ at the center. So, I'm really excited to have you on the show today.

Oh my goodness, Carrie, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. It's been an honor to be your coach. It's been an amazing time with you this past year. It has been a blessing to me as well. And you're just so brilliant and I'm so excited to be here with you. Thank you.

Before we get started, do mind just introducing? Who you are, what you're doing in the world, and then I'll share a little bit about how we met.

Absolutely. Okay. So my name is Karla Fitz. I'm originally from Venezuela and I am the Catholic Life Coach. I help Catholic entrepreneurs really step into their calling with a lot more grace to really become aware of what's happening in their minds, process emotions, and become more in alignment with the person God is calling them to be, which is in a nutshell learning how to dream again. I think for a long, long time I went through a period of my life where I was not allowing myself to dream. I thought that the things I wanted were selfish. One of the things was traveling with our family and growing as a Catholic woman, but I really wanted to work from home and live in Italy, which seemed absolutely insane. And right now, finding myself living in Assisi for the next three months is crazy, but it has been a process of co-creating with God. And so I'm very passionate on helping other Catholic women step into their most authentic version of themselves and dream again, and dream big, because that's the way we bring God into everything that we do. And a lot of my clients are business owners, which is even more amazing, because just like you, we have a mission to serve our Church and to serve the body of Christ and Him ultimately, and that's the purpose. But yeah, that's what I do. And I'm a mom of three little kids, two girls, one boy, and I have an amazing husband. And I'm also the host of the Catholic Life Coach podcast.

Yes, you guys need to check that podcast out. And I love what you said, Karla, about dreaming again, because I was introduced to you in a time in my life where I had stopped dreaming. I had just kind of gotten to a place where I was comfortable. I wasn't really fully aligned, but I was comfortable and felt like, okay, this is fine. And then we have a mutual friend named Jamie. And I've known Jamie for about 10 years now. She had mentioned that one of her clients was a Catholic life coach. And I had shared my journey with Jamie because I'm a convert. And she's like, well, you know, I have this client who calls herself the Catholic life coach. I was like, wow, that's really a thing. I had known a little bit about coaching previously from more of a secular standpoint. So it was like a head scratcher for me. I was like, can this be Catholic? And she introduced us. I started listening to your podcast. And then about a year ago is when I reached out. And that was one of the things that I said to you is, I feel like I'm kind of living a lie because I'm not fully integrated into this woman that God is calling me to be. And I was still a little bit disoriented. I had just become confirmed in the Catholic church and I kind of needed someone to help me navigate this whole new life that was given to me by God, by God's graces and Him appearing to me and then me accepting Him into my life and then ultimately coming to the Catholic faith. So you have 100 % helped me put Him at the center and helped us to kind of dream this life that He's put before me with us co-creating that together. So it's been beautiful.

It's so amazing to even hear you say these because your title now like in your podcast being Living Whole and Holy. It's so brilliant because notice how much shifted in that year where it's just like now you're living a more authentic life. You are a Catholic woman, not only that but now you're a podcaster. It's just such an honor for me to watch you step into this version of you and like how much are we glorifying God by saying yes to those dreams, to that desire, because I think a lot of times it starts with like a nagging of like, no, I want a little more. And we think it's that actual thing we want. Like for me it was like, oh, I wanna start traveling. But really what I wanted was to live a more slower, richer life with my faith and just over here, right? Like it's up to God to really define the life. But it's our yeses that make a difference because then he's able to open up our hearts and take us to the route he wants us to go, which is so beautiful to watch you step into this. It's amazing.

Yeah, thank you. I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about how you got into life coaching and then how you brought in the Catholic faith. Because you started out in a very different place from where you are now and it's been, it's a beautiful story. So I'd love for you to share that.

Yeah, yeah, it's a story of God never quits on us, truly. Even though we tend to walk away and we get distracted and we're like, well, I think this path is better. God is very, very loving and very patient and he brought me back, which I'm so grateful. I found life coaching because I had to lose 100 pounds. I was very, very overweight, very lost in food. I was finding a lot of...like all the pleasure was in food versus Him. It was like the thing that brought me a little bit of distraction, buffering, right? And for me it was food and sugar specifically. And I was led to the Life Coach School and that's how I found my coach. And what I found was at the moment I took sugar and food out of my life, not food I was eating, but you what I mean? Like this sugar, I took the sugar and the extra food, the excess of food, I realized that
I really just wanted to be filled. I wanted to feel full and it's that desire that only God can fill, right? So then I started taking holy hours more, mass more often, prayer more often, and I started feeling so unbelievably satisfied without having the bunch of sugars or all the carbs and just overeating. And that's how I found life coaching, but really I would say that I thought I was signing up for a weight loss program, but really God signed me up for a life altering program because then I found out that I had an option with my thoughts that we have authority over our thinking. And I fell madly in love with the process of coaching. And I went through the Life Coach School for my certification. And in that, was, I found him so much. I could not understand life coaching without the God being the compass, being the north star. You know what mean? That's the ultimate goal is to be saints. And it was just the way I understood every single concept. And for me it was like, no, I have to do this. And I could not speak about God while I was coaching. And I then went into weight loss. I thought that would be better to go into weight loss coaching because it would be more productive. And I just couldn't, it was very un-me. I just kept trying to protect myself, not talking about God even though I knew that those clients needed Him, I kept putting up that filter. Does that make sense? Moving on, it was very unnatural for me. And I think when I realized, I need to do coaching with Him at the center, then things started to really make sense to me and to my clients. And I started seeing what's happening to you, which is, is God calling us to? Like, otherwise, it just becomes kind of this other thing. Like, let's have thoughts and that's just not what it is. We become aware with a purpose for a purpose.

Yeah, I love that you just said that because it's not about bypassing those thoughts that are coming up that aren't serving us, but it's really having somebody look at everything that's going on with you. And then when God's with it, He's helping us to hold every thought captive. I mean, that's in the Bible. So, yeah, it's not bypassing. It's about having somebody sit there and allow you to see what's actually happening in your mind. That's what we have coaches because a lot of times we're stuck in these stories and we don't even know that what it's leading to is not actually for His greatest glory. So when we bring Him into it and we can have somebody help us see it in a more empowering way, then we can take actions that are aligned with Him.

Yes, yes. And it's just cleaner. it's on purpose because otherwise we're just living this life, kind of going through the motions and we think we have no options but to keep going that direction. It's kind of what you were saying in the beginning with you that it's like, I mean, it's not bad, but it's not the best. You know what I mean? I remember hearing what my coaches say, are you living your best life? And I was like, no, I'm not.  I'm like hiding in food, not dreaming, in this job that is not filling my heart. And I felt called to do something. Like I felt God was calling me to do important work and I was like, I don't know what that is, so I'm just gonna hide. Instead of becoming aware, like you said, what was happening in my mind, what I was believing, and part of it was I was believing I couldn't start a business and be a good wife. You can't have both. You have to choose. And those were unconscious beliefs I was having from generation patterns, right? Like it's just been what's been passed down versus being on purpose. Is that actually what I wanna believe? And when we become aware of those, it's very freeing.

Yeah, absolutely. So what was the shift when you decided, okay, I'm not going to be doing coaching around weight loss. This is going to be Catholic coaching. What was that process like for you?

This is the process of alignment. This is what I teach a lot in my programs is alignment tends to be this word that has a bad reputation because it's been taken by new age people that say, oh, we find alignment and it sounds woo-woo, but really it needs to be a word that we bring back into our faith because when we take God out of the center of everything, if you can imagine, you fall out of alignment, right? No longer is He in the throne, he's kind of in the background, okay? Then we feel frustrated and we feel lonely and we don't know where we're going. That's when we fall out of alignment. The same thing can happen within something you really love, which for me is coaching. I love coaching. There's nothing I can say that I don't love. I love coaching. But when I didn't have God in the center, I was out of alignment and so I was doing the thing I loved, but in a topic I was not being called to. And so God was still like, I want you to coach, but you're not in the right topic, you're not with the right people, okay? There's many coaches out there that do amazing because they love it. They love helping others lose weight. For me, that was not the case. It's not that I don't enjoy it, it was fine, but God was calling me into this specific thing, and the moment we stop fighting it and we start saying yes to, okay, I'm being called to have my faith in this. I'm being called to business women. Then we find this right combination in our life that I call our alignment with him because then we're becoming that person on purpose versus resisting it. Because what was happening in my mind was I can't be a Catholic coach. That's too small of a niche. no one's gonna like it. And it turns out that it's been part of my mission to bring truth about coaching for our faith.
Because there's a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to life coaching that in our faith is like, well, you just want to control your thoughts and leave God out of it. Where in reality it's like, no, we want to do our part as humans and do it with him, letting him lead.

Yeah, that's exactly it. Well, that's a great segue into the next question that I was thinking of that a lot of people have been asking me, especially as I'm getting closer to certification, is what exactly is life coaching? What does a session look like? And how does this differ from something like therapy or spiritual direction?

Yeah, life coaching is, I'm gonna start with therapy. So therapy is more, we spend time in your past, looking at your past, reliving it in a way so that you can heal from that moment, okay? Life coaching is more focused on the future. It's becoming okay with what happened, where we're at now, and then moving forward on purpose, right, deciding. Because I think life coaching is a lot about decision making. So that we're not just, well, I'm defined by what happened, I get to decide how I'm going to believe, what I'm going to believe about this that happened in the past and how I wanna move forward. So life coaching is very much intentional moving forward. It's also very different from spiritual direction, because spiritual direction is focused very much on your spirituality. Whereas for me it's a mix a little bit because I do tell my clients things like, you know, this week spend time in holy hour and I encourage our faith a lot because there's nothing, there's nothing more healing to me than confession, mass, and holy hours. you know, it's the core of everything. We need to be with Him. That is very powerful, but spiritual direction is very specific to your spiritual life. Whereas life coaching takes I take, at least from our version of coaching, which is faith-based coaching, Catholic coaching, we take our faith into, and put it in the center of the coaching sessions, we pray together, right? But we're still, the biggest piece in coaching is getting very curious about our clients' thoughts and helping them process emotions and holding space for them. But the difference is that we have God in the middle.
 We're inviting the Holy Spirit into every single session and then asking guidance. And for me it's like I have to center everything around the Eucharist, right? Like He is our guide. And what a brilliant thing that we have confessions when a client is going through something really difficult and the biggest healing we can find is within our faith. And so we're just mixing thought work, mind work with our faith, which I think is very powerful.

Yeah, it's such a beautiful combination.  That's what I love about the Catholic faith is that God gave us all these sacraments. He gave us the sacrament of confession. He gave us Holy Communion. So all of these things are meant to be healing. And the beautiful thing about coaching is it does give you the opportunity to really see what's going on in your mind. And what I love about this work is that we have circumstances and our circumstances are neutral. But what we tend to do is make our circumstances have all this meaning or we make something about them a problem and then we have a thought. Can you just take us a little bit through kind of the cascade of our circumstances and then our beliefs and our emotions and what we do or don't do from that and then the results we get because it's so brilliant and I just love it so much.

Yeah, this is something that I, know, it's very human to go through and it is the fact that every single circumstance that happens in our life they're neutral, right? It's the meaning we give them. And so anything that happens to you, you're gonna have an opinion about it, if you will. Or a way of looking at it, whereas someone else could have a completely different outlook to the same thing, about the same thing, okay? But whatever we are believing and the beliefs we're practicing will cause us to feel in a certain way. And that emotion is what's really driving our actions. And those actions that we're taking ultimately create the result, right? The beautiful thing, and I think the very eye-opening thing, is that we are always doing what I love to call the co-creation process, right? We are co-creating with God. We can co-create on purpose, or we can co-create unaware. This is when we're like, I don't know what's happening, but nothing's working because we believe, well nothing's working, so we're looking for that proof, and we are creating that. But regardless whether we like it or not, we are always in the process of co-creating. Good things are not so great things. And so we may as well take our human part with our brain, take our thoughts captive, and co-create what God is calling us to co-create, rather than resisting it. Because we tend to resist our callings. Like the things that make us the happiest are the things we fight the most. So just looking at our thoughts and then choosing on purpose. What do I actually want to believe about this circumstance? If this could mean anything, what do I want to believe? Because depending on that belief, you're going to feel very, very differently.

Yeah. It really takes us out of the victim mindset, and like things coming at us or happening to us, and really puts us back into that place of empowerment and the place where God can really sit beside us. And I love your analogy of the co-pilot. You know, and you're right, we are always creating, whether we realize it or not, we're thinking things and if we're thinking unconsciously in ways that are leading us to results that are actually not desirable or a place where God wants us to be, we're actually not serving Him and serving others in the best way that we can. Because when we're in that victim-y space, we have a very narrow view of what's possible. I very much remember you saying, when you're living in your comfort zone, the range of emotions that you feel is quite limited. And I always like to see this little square like right in front of your face. And it's like, this is what you see. You can feel happiness, you can feel sadness. Sometimes you feel excitement. But generally, you kind of expect what you're gonna feel and you know things are gonna happen, good things and bad things. But when you really step out into what He's calling you to, and He is persistent, you are right about that. You experience a much wider range of emotions because God is unlimited, right? So if He's with you and He's put these desires in your heart and you guys are partnering together and co-creating together, what He can do is unlimited and it will blow your mind.

Yeah, it will literally blow your mind. I think it's so powerful to remember that because He's with us, there's an opportunity for us to see our circumstances, things that are happening against us, or we can question, how is this for me? Right, like example, just yesterday, I was in the office and I had one of my clients couldn't make it and I was like, Oh no, I have to stay here another hour. And I'm like, well, it's okay. How could this be for me? So I texted my next client, I'm like, do you wanna do this sooner? And she's like, yeah, I'm ready now. So we did our call. And I would have never imagined, but I went home earlier and I got home and then we got there and this ginormous storm broke here in Assisi. We lost power, there was water coming in, but you know where I was? I was at home and I was so grateful that that client couldn't make it because God was looking out for me. And so it's like, we have those opportunities to think. We can believe that things are against us or we can literally choose to say, wait, how is this for me? And then we always see the reason why that thing happened later, but we tend to forget that it's always happening for us, not against us. Does make sense?

Yes, He always has a reason for everything, even if it doesn't make sense. Yeah. And I think one of the greatest things that I've gained from coaching is just a peace of mind that I've never had. Like when I had the experience of Jesus for the very first time, when He appeared to me in my dream, I did feel that peace that passes all human understanding that I had searched for for 15 years in the New Age. It always eluded me. I always felt empty. And in your case, you were you were turning toward food. We can turn toward all kinds of things. And in reality, He's there the whole time having the ability to know that there's a different way and that, there may be these thoughts that are running, but that you can have authority with God over them. It'll change the way that you think so much that it's so much easier to have peace of mind about things because you do start to trust. Okay, when things don't go "the way I want" or the way I was trying to control them to go, He has a reason for it. And look what happened when you were at home, you were with your kids and you weren't up the hill in Assisi hoping you're gonna make it back down. 

I think that one of the greatest fruits of, there are so many fruits of coaching. And that's how I know that it's of God because you can see the fruit of what's happening in your life when you are involved in something. And I see the fruits of my life in the New Age and the fruits of my life since becoming Catholic. And I tell people having a Catholic coach has, it's just actually because, you always point me back to Christ. My relationship with God has gotten more intimate. I am prioritizing my prayer time. I'm making time for a holy hour and making time for mass. I don't get to mass every day, but I'm making time for mass as much as I can. So the fruit of it has just been such a deeper relationship to God. And I love that because a lot of times when you have mentors or teachers, if they're not in the faith, they're pointing you either back to yourself or to something greater than you, they may not call it God, but I really, that's what I strive to do with my clients too, is like, I don't have the answers. I'm just, I'm alongside you, God's on the other side and we're all in this together helping you to see that thought. And then our brains are so beautiful that when you're thinking negatively and you're in this negative mindset, you will convince yourself with your results of why everything isn't working. And I'll give an example from my own life. So I've been a Seech Therapist for 15 years. And truth be told, part of the reason that I was really excited to work with you is because something just did not feel right with it anymore. After I had my conversion, I fell so much in love with the faith and I'm like, God, I wanna do something for your kingdom. And of course I can do that as a Seech Therapist. There are so many beautiful ways to serve children and their families. But God was calling me to something deeper and I didn't quite know what that was. And by working with you, I've been able to find that peace of mind within my work environment to where I did feel like a victim a lot of the times. I felt like a victim to the system. I felt like a victim to my workload. And I'm telling you, now that I've let all that go, the work, is not stressful. I don't think about it when I'm not there. I don't bring work home. At the same time, I'm so excited about what God is doing and calling me to and entrusting in his timing of it. I'm still working that job, but I'm stepping into podcasting, Catholic coaching. And what I will say is I spent a lot of years really frustrated with my career and not feeling like it was fulfilling in certain ways and getting to work with families and everything like that and see children transform is inspiring, but it always has felt like work. And God was so persistent with me about this podcast. I mean, I went on a podcast about a year ago, Catholic Recon, and I mentioned it a couple episodes ago. And I remember after recording that podcast, was like, hmm, I really would love to just have conversations with people about the faith because I love it so much. And then I was on your podcast and God planted this seed and He would not stop being persistent with it. And we had this conversation in the summer. You're like, so when are you starting that podcast, Carrie? And I was like, oh, I think January. I have some time and you're like, no, how about how about you start that podcast?

Yes, yeah, yes, because the more you fight it, it's just the more we procrastinate or fight something that we really be a call to, the more painful it is. So I love that you stepped into it. How is it feeling now?

Well, what I was going to say is for the first time in my life, I'm doing something where I lose track of time. As hard as it was, I took a course on how to do podcasting because I can't hire a producer. So, and I remember like I had all these thoughts about the podcast, like I'm not good with technology. I'm not going to be able to figure it out, you know, all of these things. But then I also had the thought of like, I'm going to have a whole new skill when this is done. And I'm also going to be able to share the faith, bring conversion stories, share about Catholic coaching, all things that I love so much. So I'm in alignment. And even though I'm doing this outside of, you know, I work full time, but I've been able to do it in my free time and it doesn't feel like work. And then I also thought to myself the other day, well, maybe that background in speech pathology has helped me because I know about annunciation. I know about communication and so God didn't make a mistake with that.

Yes! That is brilliant! Yes! It's so beautiful.

Yeah, and then coaching, my gosh. So with coaching, not that long after we met, God put this idea in my head of, why don't you ask Karla if she'll train you? And I'm like, she's not gonna wanna train me! But I think you and I hit it off so well. And I was like, I would love to be a Catholic coach. I don't know how it's gonna work.
I don't know if she's gonna say yes. And then I remember asking you and you're like, let me pray about it. And I was like, okay, let me pray about it some more. I already prayed about it, but I feel like He told me. And then it came together and I remember like saying yes to you on Ash Wednesday. And they went to the mass and then I just had confirmation and I saw St. Jude, St. Jude always follows me around. And I saw like two St. Jude stickers that day I'm like, okay. Cause it felt impossible. It's like. I've had this career for this long and it's comfortable and now I've gotten into a place with it where it's not terrible. But God's calling me. He didn't give me this story and come into my life the way He did to me and my husband for me to keep it to myself. So I was so excited that you said yes and that we got to train together and. You know, you've been able to watch me coach, give me feedback, which has been huge. And I'm so excited to be certified next week.

Oh my goodness, You're so, I can't believe this is, it's crazy how it's so true that when you step into that alignment through your callings, everything just goes by with so much more joy. Like there's so much less resistance, there's a lot of joy. Because for me, there was another side of the story, right? you were called to ask me to see I would certify you and train you. And I went through this rabbit hole of like, should I be training her? And then God was like, your degree, your master's degree is in education. Like, are you kidding me? And so it's like, I was like, well, maybe, I don't know if this is in alignment. And I remember having like, I did, I prayed a lot about it. And I was like, okay, I want to know if this is what you want me to do. And God was very clear to me that he needed me to do this. And so I was like, all right, let's do it. And it has been one of the best six months of my life training you and Talina, like I'm just so grateful because God brought two of you together at the same time to come to me and ask me because I was not, this is not something I'm promoting. This was something that I really wanted to do really well for you too. And if in time, this is something God wants it to grow, then beautiful. But I felt so called to do it for you guys and you guys are brilliant, brilliant coaches and it's just watching you grow and step into the discomfort but step into alignment because I think this is a misunderstanding, right? We think, oh, alignment sounds so pretty but it also is a call to discomfort. And you guys have, you both have grown so much in the past six months because it's been a process of growing into discomfort, allowing and allowing new emotions. You said it, it's a fuller life because we live a full range of emotions. There's gonna be moments where you feel seen, there's gonna be fear, there's gonna be exposure and just so many emotions that we're not so used to because we tend to live into a comfort zone. But when you step into this, okay, God is calling me to do this next step and get certified, become a coach. There's so many new emotions that you will experience and it has been a joy watching you guys step into this version of yourselves and learn how to coach and hold God in the center of your coaching. I'm just so grateful because this work of Catholic coaching needs to grow. It needs to reach the right people, more people, and your clients are waiting for you. I believe that in my soul. I know this is how it is.  And I'm so grateful that you guys said yes. And of course, I'm so grateful I said yes because it was my alignment. I have loved creating all the lessons, teaching you guys, giving you feedback, all of it. It has been such a joy to do this.

Yes, and there's so much I can't wait to share on the podcast because I feel like coaching also makes life simpler. It helps you build a routine. It helps you to kind of weed out what is not important. You know, helps you set boundaries in a really loving way. I know you're big into romanticizing life and simplicity and beauty. I'd just love for you to share a little bit about how coaching has helped you to do that too.

Oh my! That's a big question. Coaching changed my life. Every time I welcome a new woman into my programs, I do it because I believe in it so deeply, because it changed my life. Like I was very, very lost. I was not excited about anything. I was very much... average mom, not much dreams, just what's expected. And in the process of life coaching, God has been able to really clean up the mess of my mind so that he could tell me what he wanted, right? And he pulled me out of teaching full-time and then called me into homeschooling, which I was like, I don't know that I'm the right person again, even though I totally know how to teach. This is my thing, but I don't know that with my children that's good idea, but really has helped me to be more authentic, to really live out the life he wanted for me, even though people were like, no, you're insane, why would you homeschool? You have the school system. But I believe that wanted, God was calling me to do this thing, right? But I see him in everything now, you know? And it's like this life that we live, that we're living right now, where we have this business, we have this business, my husband and I work together in the business now. We travel with our kids, we are still homeschooling in Assisi. We are doing retreats in Assisi. It's all unreal. And there's nothing, no one can ever tell me that all of this happened because of me. It happened because I was open to saying yes, it happened because God let it, and he definitely was leading the process of co-creation. But it would not have happened if I was stuck in my old beliefs. If I was stuck in this is impossible, no one lives this life, who gets to travel? That's unrealistic. Let's stay real. That was one of my favorite thoughts. This is not realistic. And now I'm like, ooh, let's be unrealistic. If I'm gonna be delusional, let me be delusional in what I really, really want. Because otherwise, I also believe that people that think there's no growth are a little bit delusional. Cause I'm like, well, they're gonna think I'm crazy anyway. May as well make it fun, right? Like, might as well make it what God is calling me to be. But it changed everything because when I realized I had an option, it changed me, it changed my behavior, it changed my relationship, I had always, I've always had a great marriage, but it made my marriage so much better because I'm able to just separate my husband's thoughts and emotions from mine and hold space for him.
It changed everything. Everything. I just can't say that enough. This is something that everyone needs. Everyone deserves. It's life changing.

Absolutely, I 100 % agree. Because when you put Him at the center of everything, yeah, that's what you've helped me to do and helped me to see. And yeah, my husband and I, we were not married within the church and then we had our marriage convalidated  on our anniversary last year. And that concept of having Jesus at the center, it's just transformed everything. And then I feel like I've put Him at the center of my day job and then I don't have all this pain and struggle that I used to have. I put him at the center of becoming a certified Catholic life coach. And then this podcast, like literally I would go to Holy hour and say, okay, God, what do you want with this podcast? Who's the confirmation saint? I mean, the saint of this podcast and it was my confirmation saint. So it's like this dance we get to do with Him. And I've heard it said before that we can either have a fear-based mindset or a kingdom-based mindset. And we're putting on the mind of Christ, we're thinking like God thinks, we're holding every thought captive. And when we do that, then the fruit of that just shows up in our lives. The things start happening and there isn't this struggle, there isn't this resistance and things can just flow so much more easily. And now you're living that, you're like, can see and you're doing all of the things that God was placing into your heart and you've been able to integrate it all and keep Him at the center of all of that's beautiful.

Yeah, I think what I love so much, there's two things that come to mind. One is there is a phrase from St. Francis of Assisi that is, I'm probably gonna butcher this, but I'm gonna try to say it. You first do what's necessary, then what's possible, and then you find yourself doing the impossible. And for me, there is a piece on it, right? You first do what's necessary. You gotta show up for your life. There's a certain set of circumstances you have right now. Then we do what's possible.
How do I wanna show up for my life right now? How do I wanna see it? What perspective do I wanna have on it? What can I do now? And then God moves the pieces, the puzzle pieces, right? But one of the things I absolutely love about this is that I'm here and every person that comes in my life that might not believe about God cannot deny that God exists. And I love that. Because to me it's like they'll ask me questions like, well, what's been the most fun about this process that you've gone through? My favorite part is watching Him act when I am not in the middle anymore. Like I always talk about this river of graces that He's always in constant sending us graces, but our thoughts, our beliefs are in the middle. And I'm like, once you clean it up and you get out of the way and you let Him work through you and you enjoy the ride because there's not this expectation of like it has to happen in my terms. It gets to happen surrendered to Him. Man alive, it's so fun to watch Him do His thing.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I think the other thing too is He doesn't call us to be perfect. If he gives us a calling, that's enough to get started.So we're never gonna feel ready. Like we just have to get started with something. And then he, just perfects it as we go along and continues to equip us. He doesn't say, okay, you're equipped from the start, you know.

No, he's the one preparing us. Every step of the way is preparation for the next step. But that's why we don't get to the goal right away. It's about the person that we're becoming in the process to the goal, right? It's a preparation, but it's a becoming. It's all about the becoming, not about the goal. It's what needs to happen before you get there.

Yeah. And that just reminds me of formation and building virtue because through that process, we can choose to allow ourselves to really ask God, which virtues can I step into here? And that's something I've been doing within my coaching sessions is asking my clients which fruit of the spirit are present here or which one is God calling you into more?

There is this quote that I love that you talk about from St. Augustine, how that kind of ties in with everything that we've been talking about. Can you share?

Yes. "Without God, I can't. Without me, he won't." I love that. It is so true. It's just, what? This is the process. It's the co-creation. Without Him, we cannot do anything. But without us, without our participation, then we're also missing out on the miracles He wants to involve us in, right? Like I always give the example of the disciples in the boat. God could have gotten those fish out you guys. He could have just get them out but He wanted them to participate and He's calling each one of us every single day to participate in His miracles.

Yeah, that kind of makes me think about desire. Because sometimes there's this misconception too about desire, like desires of the heart, that they're not pure or something like that. But I'm wondering how you would approach that. Like if God puts a desire in your heart, how do you know that it's from him and not from the enemy, or from your ego, or from your selfishness? Because I think that's a big piece in coaching and I think it needs to be cleared up.

Yeah, I think the way I see think about desires is that there are desires that are short term. They're the ones that are more about the immediate pleasure and those are very human. But the desires that God put in our hearts tend to be bigger. They tend to have to do with our charisms and our gifts that we are meant to be using for His glory, to bring the kingdom, to grow the kingdom, and to bring people towards Him. That's how I see it. The desires that God plays in our hearts, they're very, God is very persistent, like we have said before. He's very persistent, He's very clear. He is very much like, He will come back and come back until you can't ignore it anymore, right? But also His desires have a greater purpose than our desires. Our desires are going to be example, for me was traveling, but God was like, yes, and. want you to bring people to me. I want you to grow the kingdom. I want you to utilize your gifts, your charisms to grow and bring more people into this life of faith and purpose, right? So those are the two very different things. But I think when one of the things I love to do when I have desire in my heart, I ask God very clearly to tell me, like, is this desire something you want from me or not. And God will tell you in very many different ways, right? And I love asking for, like one of the things is like don't ask for confirmations. I think confirmations are very, very helpful but at one point or another you're gonna have to decide that God already gave you enough confirmation for you to move, And so I think very much just like we need to be praying, we need to clean up our minds so that we are able to distinguish what's our voice? What's the devil's voice? What's God's voice? We need to learn how to spend time with those voices and recognize, okay, what's of Him, what's not? But the thing that I have noticed a pattern with is that those desires that are very, I call them like very soulful, very, very present in your heart and in your soul, they come back and they feel uncomfortable. I think that's the other thing I think our desires are very much like, it sounds pretty, let's go do it. But there's more to it. It's like God brings this growth into that desire, that point of that desire in your heart is to grow you, to expand you, and to bring you closer to Him. Because I think it's more like as you really step into your goals and those desires, you'll find you can't do it alone. And so it's brilliant because it's the design that we were created with which is we can't do it without Him, and it brings us closer to Him. If there you have a desire that takes you away from your faith that takes you away from God, that's not a holy desire. But if the desire helps you get closer to Him and it has that purpose, you need to listen.

Absolutely, and he will he will guide you if you end up going down the wrong road He will redirect you.  I love what you said about bringing it to prayer and having him confirm it because yeah, we do have all kinds of desires, but we want to have those holy desires. So that's that's a beautiful explanation Yeah, love it.  Well, I am so excited that I get to actually meet you in Assisi in a few weeks! It's going to be awesome. I went to Assisi last year. And when I was there, God said, you're coming back very soon. And I was like, well, I'd better go home and renew my passport because I literally had 13 days left of my passport. Assisi is so special and so amazing. I went to Rome, Assisi, and San Giovanni Rotondo last year and I love them all. But Assisi...it's so magical and it's so peaceful and I'm excited to your retreat. Yes, absolutely. Before we go, I would love for you to, so this podcast is called Living Whole and Holy, I would love to know what that means to you. Like how do you live a whole and holy life?

To me, living a whole and holy life... is rediscovering ourselves through Him. It's finding out whom He's calling us to be, is putting our life, everything that we do, the little things, the big things, all in His hands, His surrendering. And it's really stepping into boldness with our faith in our life that is authentic to us. It's very different for each person, but it's purposeful for each one of us.  And it's just how can we slow down enough to get to know the person God is calling us to, the person that we are right now, and also the person that we're becoming, right? How can we slow down enough to do what God is calling me to do in this lifetime? Which is very filled with purpose, so yeah, that's what I would say.

That's so beautiful. And who is a saint that you are friends with right now, who is in your life and you're just loving, surrounding yourself with?

I have a lot of saints but Carlo Acutisis my bestie. I love him so much. He was born a couple months after I was born so there's something very special about that. And also he's such an example of how we are still to the day called to be saints. Like we have a mission. How can we utilize those gifts that God gives us to serve him, to bring people to him and bring them back to the Eucharist. So he is, I love him dearly. 

Me too. He's, yeah. I know. I know. I'm excited to see him again when I come to Assisi. Well, Karla, tell people where they can find you and all your links and everything.

Yeah, come hang out at the Catholic Life Coach on Instagram. I put lots of pictures of us, you see, and all the fun stories that we are having right now as a family. Also, I have the podcast of the Catholic Life Coach Podcast and website, all programs, everything is at www.karlafitz.com Very simple, either The Catholic Life Coach or Karla Fitz. But I'm happy to hang out in any of those and answer questions.

Yes, her podcast is amazing. And I will put the links for all of that in the show notes. Karla, thank you so much for being the first guest. I can't think of anyone better to have been the first guest than you. I'm excited for people to get to know your work and just how awesome of person you are. And you're just such a beautiful example of what it means to be a whole and holy Catholic woman. So thanks for being on the show!

Yes! You bet. Thanks so much for having me my love.