Voices in Your Head...Can You Trust Them? S1|E8

Not every voice in your head speaks the Truth. 

Sometimes the voice is just your (un)trusty old ego.

In this episode, Kimberley sits down with her very first guest, Reverend Jason A. Benefield, to explore how your soul's whisper actually shows up—and how to tell when it’s real.

Because knowing the difference between soul whispers and ego changes everything.

Keep on walking with our dear friend, Reverend Jason A. Benefield | Website: https://www.jasonabenefield.com | Book: “The Essential Pain and Peace of Life”: https://a.co/d/08RwCMN3 | Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonabenefield?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Souljourner Truth, hosted by Kimberley.

Walk with me.

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"Something Inspired" | written and performed by Kimberley David | recorded and mixed @ The Snug West Studio, Las Vegas, all instruments and backing vocals by Paul Umbach - paulumbachmusic.com

© 2026 Souljourner Truth. All rights reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to Souljourner Truth, where we'll find our way home together. I'm Kimberly, and just like you, I want more joy, more peace, more prosperity, and more love in my life. Every episode, we'll examine a soul-stirring question, we'll walk it out with practical, easy-to-manage steps, and then we'll bring it home by integrating and embodying what we've just learned. If you're ready to come home to the best version of yourself, then walk with me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Hey, how are you doing, everybody?

SPEAKER_04 1:04

And what Jason doesn't want to tell you is that he's a reverend and about to be a doctorate. A doctor?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Doctorate. You get my doctorate to be a doctor in spirituality.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

So we are in some good company today, and I'm so excited that you've agreed to be my very first guest.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. You know you're one of my favorites.

unknown 1:30

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

We have a lot of fun. Y'all don't know yet, but we do have a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:34

Y'all will learn. Um so I wanted you to come in today to help us walk through because you're so steeped in spiritual tradition and spiritual practices. Um help us walk through how to understand when your soul is talking to you versus when your ego is talking to you. And one of the things we've been working through on episodes lately is trying to listen to that soul's whisper, right? And realizing that it can come in any manner of ways, right? Some people might describe it as like a gut nudge, some people actually may hear a voice, some people may see patterns repeated in their life, saying, hey, pay attention to this. Um, some people may actually hear a voice, some people see a vision, and knowing that for everybody it can be different, right? But how do we know when it's real versus just your ego being like, yeah, you need a, I don't know, Lamborghini.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Find a Lamborghini, find a Lamborghini. How do we know?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Oh wow, it's so interesting. A lot of times it happens where I see it, I hear it.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

Like visit vis like see it up here.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

I see it up here, but then sometimes I see it out there too as well. Like even like for instance, uh, you mentioned the Lamborghini. So right now, I'm looking at a Mercedes-Benz SUV, you know. Okay. And so now it's like everywhere I turn around, I'm seeing different types of models of Mercedes-Benz SUV.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

Is God telling you to get a Mercedes SV?

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yes, absolutely. Right. And I think that's a lot like a lot a lot of times. I think people are like that. They they say, oh my God, I feel it, I see it, I hear it, I know it's there, it's like like closer than I can actually touch it, right? Because it's it's so it's such a um overwhelming. Just it's an overwhelming feeling.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

But wait a second, because sometimes I have an overwhelming feeling to punch somebody in the face. Is that spirit talking to me?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

I think that's I think that's ego. What individuals call ego?

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Right, but how do I know the difference?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Like, uh, because we're we're in a loving universe. A lot of times when the punch somebody in the face is more so of a reaction and and not a harmonizing response to the situation. Yeah. But I do want to go back to one thing though. How do we know about our desire? Um, scripture says, once I've heard it, twice you've spoken, power belongs to God. And a lot of times uh we hear it, and and and also we know we get that nudge to move forward and to do something, and then uh you hear it again, and it becomes a little bit louder. And what is really important in all of this is making sure you know the voice of God for yourself, you know the feeling of God for yourself, and you know the vision of God for yourself, because all of it is uniquely created for us to know and understand for ourselves. So it's like that's where the daily practice of meditation and visioning and prayer comes in, so then that way you always know and feel who and whose you are all the time, at all times, so you know that when you're hearing, when you're seeing, when you're feeling, you know it's from God, you know it's from spirit, source, energy.

SPEAKER_04 5:30

Peggy stew, I think, is what we decided to call source in one episode. Sure. I was like, you can call it God, you can call it, you can call it Peggy Stew. Or Becky Becky's too.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Becky zoo, I call it, I call it true essence.

SPEAKER_04 5:43

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

That's that's mine.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

So I think what you're saying. I said a lot, is if I could just distill it down a little bit, is take in what you hear, what you see, what you're thinking, and perhaps ask the question, is this in alignment with source? Right. Like obviously punching someone in the face is not in alignment with source.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

And another thing, too, about when when we have this soul's desire come up for us, uh, a lot of times it comes up for us because of the fact that there's something that was missing in our lives that we truly, truly wanted to actually exist.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

Say more.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

I will say more. Um so growing up, matter of fact, shameless plug.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

What my book Where'd that come from?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

The essential pain and peace of life, journey of unfolding consciousness, is loosely based on me and my life of uh growing up with a medical situation that was looked at as a behavioral issue and um treated as such. I said I went from before being on dilatin and tagritol, I was on ass whoopings and punishment. So um, because I didn't have a support system, I didn't have somebody there to help me to be able to regulate my energy, to be able to show me and direct me in a path that I can still go regardless of what I was moving through with my parents and also my siblings and also with my relatives, that I still had a purpose. I still had a calling on my life. I still, there was something bigger and grander than what I was experiencing as a child. And then I, but the end I will tell people also is that if I did not continue to focus on God, I don't know where I would be today. I don't know what I'd be doing. So that's why I believe the soul's desire uh of having something that you feel like you missed, that you didn't have, that you know that you could have wanted for your life.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

So, like healing your own inner child or something.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, yeah, something similar to that. Healing your own inner child, uh being uh learning how to be present with you and who you are as your own individual self. Um learn to love who you are, appreciate who you are, knowing that you exist for a reason.

SPEAKER_04 8:24

Are these the things you incarnated to learn?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

These are some of the things that I did incarnate to learn. Absolutely. I grew up as a bishop's grandson. I know all about that. I desired that at one point, and then I met Les Brown. And Les Brown is a motivational speaker, and I heard his story. I felt his pain. I said, I want to express my pain this way too. And I was 12 years old.

SPEAKER_04 8:55

When you came across him?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

When I came across him, I was 12 years old, and I read his book, cover to cover, his first book, Live Your Dreams. So then I said, okay, I could be a pastor, but he's touching lives everywhere. He's not just in one place.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

You could see this at 12?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

I don't know what I was saying.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I mean, I had my first Charles Sermon at 17.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

I think I was like chasing boys and right on chasing boys?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Right on, right on. Yeah. I didn't I didn't I didn't have my first girlfriend until college.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

Well you were too busy serving God.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Anyway, soul desire. What is so important is that God always gives us visions. God always gives us ideas, God always gives us thoughts, God always gives us everything that we need to hear, know, and to do.

SPEAKER_04 10:05

So you feel spirit is you know for sure spirit is talking to you because it shows up in so many different ways. So many different ways. It's not just a gut nudge, it's not just a longing for a Mercedes. It's uh it's showing up in multiple ways, multiple in patterns that um repeating over and over again. You hear it, you see it, you think it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah, yeah, I like I own into all of it. And so I now I can't say that I don't know or I never heard it. I do know. And it is up to me to actually do it. It's up to me to actually move forward with it. Like, even when you brought up, like, well, what about the voice of ego? Well, if we look at the ways that thought forms and beliefs come up that are the exact opposite of what it is that you want to do.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

So say more.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

So, like a lot of times for me, uh, what comes up for me is, well, I'm not getting enough likes on social media.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

You care about that?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Oh my god. So just a little bit, little bit. So then when I notice, oh man, people only look at 53 seconds of your video. I did a full 53 seconds.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

I did 53 minutes, and you're gonna be able to get a little bit more. 53 minutes, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Right. Like, it was like you see my face, hi, and it was like, okay, next. I like next, you know, like that. So, so so those that's a thought I have. Like, um, people are not looking, people are not responding, people are not actually wanting to know more. How can we actually get in contact with him? What can we do? So, like, all those things. So I'm saying, so so a lot of times I'm feeling like, okay, am I doing all this work because I want to be seen, or if I'm doing all this work because I actually feel like I'm helping someone. And so I've started doing these um posts in 15 seconds, right, for for each situation. And then someone actually was actually reached out. And I was just like, okay, that's what's up. You know, I was I was excited about that. So it so sometimes you never know who's gonna come into your life and why. You know, it was like because I was on a um Instagram live talking about my book, was the reason why I was able to be a speaker at this convention.

SPEAKER_04 12:44

When you thought nobody was listening.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

When I thought nobody was listening and nobody was paying attention.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

I want to share with you something I learned from Ram Das. I do it for me. I don't do this work for I mean, yes, I want to help every single person. I want everyone to listen. I want, I want the whole world to get something out of this, to learn and grow. But really, this is my work to do, and I'm gonna do it regardless of whether one person listens or whether a million. It's my journey, it's my unfolding. And every day when I sit down and excuse me, work on uh a script for an episode or post a short, I'm learning something in that process. I am, you know, taking in things I've heard, read, seen, filtering it, distilling it, and making sense of it for me. And then I give it to, you know, the world to consume or not consume, but at the end of the day, it's for me. And I imagine the work you do, really, Jason, is for you too. Yeah, that is your soul's calling, and that's how you know it's the call on your soul because it's healing something in you while it's also healing other people.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

I receive that. I receive that. And so I believe for me, right, there is something that I'm working through even now, right? Because I'm becoming more aware of it now, because there's something greater that's supposed to be expressed, that is going to be expressed for me, right? So the workout part for me is uh external validation, not worrying about it, not worrying about you know what people are are saying or doing, right? And uh to to get rid of the chatter in my own mind about myself and about my abilities.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

So that you can hear.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

So I can hear, be open, get the information I need, uh, to be able to make the posts, to be able to create the um podcasts or or whatever it is that Spirit has me do. Uh, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

I feel like this could be a whole nother show, like the role of social media in spiritual discovery and how we get right with the need to get likes and good, what are they called? Metrics. Metric oh yeah, analytics. Analytics.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, metrics, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:33

Um, the need to get right with all that, but still stay true to the voice, the calling, right? And not go pandering after likes.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

That's a whole nother episode. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

We're just starting out, it's episode eight. We gotta say something for episode 28.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Right on.

SPEAKER_04 15:53

But yes, yeah, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Yeah. And that's why you keep hearing it, that's why you keep seeing it, that's why you keep feeling it, that's why you keep that's why you keep seeing it up here, out there and in here, hearing it inside from other people, and then feeling it. Like knowing that every time it comes up into your awareness, you're like, oh yeah. This is the feeling of peace, this is the feeling of joy, this is the feeling of freedom. That when I know I'm walking in my purpose, when I know that I'm walking in the will of God, this is what it is for me.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

I want to push on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Go ahead, push.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

Because for me, I didn't even ask her. He didn't.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

So, okay, so how you see how he treats me? Yeah, like the big little sister that she is. So, how does it come up for you?

SPEAKER_04 16:45

So I'm not as open as Jason yet. I don't yet trust what I see in my visioning because I'm not sure. Is that just Kimberly being yeah, yeah, yeah? Or is that spirit? Which is why I'm asking the question, how do we know, right? Um I don't really, haven't really heard God's voice talking to me. Like some people, like Reverend Michael Adagape, will literally talk about hearing a voice. Someone said to him, like clear as day, I haven't had that yet. But what I do recognize are patterns being the same thing, and you were saying this, it keeps repeating, it keeps showing up in different ways. So, my big example, and one of the reasons I really wanted to have you for this conversation, is how I even came to this work.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I know.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

Because I know you remember because we've talked about it before, but maybe about a year and a half ago when I had just met Jason, and we were doing like some kind of choir workshoppy thing where we were like, I don't know, it's like a mini therapy session, and I was kind of asking some questions, and um, and I was a newbie to the choir.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Like you would never know.

SPEAKER_04 18:24

I was like completely new and just inserted myself in this thing in a very big way.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

You have a big aura and spirit about yourself. That's why when you come in, it's like, oh this is Kimberly, let's go. Okay. You got it.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Like, I don't know, maybe there was a group of what six of us, and we're kind of doing this like mini therapy session, and I'm asking some questions, and whatever. Jason turns and looks at me and says, I cannot wait for you to become a spiritual practitioner. And I literally almost gave him two middle fingers. I'm not even kidding. I had such a visceral response to that. I was like, Are you crazy, dude? I'm a lawyer and no. But I sat with that and I kept asking myself, why? Why did I respond that way? That was so weird, that was so out of character. I'm sure I looked like a lunatic to everyone in the room. Like I was literally ready to punch Jason in the face.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

That's where the punch came from. That's why she asked about the punch.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

But I sat with it for like a year. And over the course of that year, also feeling like I had lost focus of like my next goal. Like my whole life I've always had some goal as working towards, you know, uh, I don't know, be a professional musician, uh, become a lawyer, like get a job at this firm. Oh, there was always some goal, and I just, you know, trod on a lot to make it happen. And, you know, 13 years into being a lawyer, and I'm like, that was kind of my last big goal, and what what's next? I feel so empty. I don't know what I'm doing or what I'm supposed to be doing. So I'm sitting with that also. And that question, that I guess suggestion that Jason implanted in me. One day, I literally just was like, Kimberly, and maybe I heard I didn't hear a voice. Okay, I'm gonna tell you right now, I did not hear God be like, you should make a podcast. I didn't hear that. But I was just sitting at my desk doing lawyerly things, and I was like, you should make a podcast, and you should just go on like every other day for like two or three minutes and be like blah blah blah blah blah. This is what I'm thinking about today spiritually, right? And in part because I had heard Ramda say, you do it for you, not for anybody else, because I heard Sonia say, she, um, Sonia uh Agape in the in our choir, Sonia say that she um had written a play and she had big hopes and dreams for the play, but it kind of stayed small, but that she's performed it year after year after year, and people keep coming back, so she knows she's touching somebody. So whether a million people see it or 25 people see it, she feels so fulfilled and knows that she was supposed to write that play and perform that play and put it on. And then the drummer I knew back in the early 2000s, shout out to Casual Tea in New York, would put out a newsletter like every month. I'm gonna say he put that thing out for a decade, and it would come in my don't listen to this tea, in my inbox every month for like 10 years, and I was always like, Yeah, that's nice, delete. Never read it. Then one day I read it and I was like, oh my god, this is amazing! What have I been missing all this time? And my takeaway was not so much like, oh, how amazing the newsletter is, but it really is amazing. It was, oh my gosh, he loves the craft of drumming so much, he's so dedicated to this, and he has been consistently showing up month after month, year after year, putting out this content really for him, but the rest of us get to enjoy it, and what a beautiful expression of his gift. And there was just so much love in that. I was like, that's what you need to do. You need to do just a little Instagram thing, and then literally over the course of like three weeks, it just grew bigger and bigger and bigger. Okay, no, you're gonna do long form format, you're gonna talk about books you've read, you're gonna have uh guests, you're gonna travel to places and explain that whole experience. You are going to get a coaching certification and become a spiritual life coach. I mean, boom, but that's how I knew it was spirit and not ego because it just kept coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, coming. And yeah, I guess I kind of felt it in my body, like just you said this earlier. It's just a knowing without knowing, and that's really the definition of intuition, right? It's a knowing without knowing how you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

So when you said that, I was like, So me speaking that into your life was was needed.

SPEAKER_04 24:23

Yes. I mean, listen, someone else would have said it if Jason said.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

But that's true, that is true, that is so true. Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

But you were, we were put together in that room in that particular situation. I was compelled to speak, and you were compelled to speak back to me, and that was all for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:52

Um so I I guess I want to elaborate on this so much because I've there's a lot of there are a lot of people out in the world today talking about spirituality, and a lot of them come from a place which isn't wrong, but from a place where they have these big, cracked open, like transcendent experiences. And I just need to share with people that it doesn't always happen that way, it doesn't have to happen that way. You can still nurture a spiritual life, uh you can still hear the voice of spirit talking to you, spirit is always talking to you. Every moment every day. Right. Yes, you just have to figure out how it is you hear it, yeah, and how you hear it is gonna be completely different from how maybe I hear it or Jason hears it, or someone else who says, I just walked outside and God said, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Build a I don't know, build a whatever.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Baseball dispute?

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah, and they will come, and they all come. Yeah, build it, oh my god. This is amazing. I'll have fun.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

Well, I feel like I feel like we said it, we said it all. Yeah. We will just this is supposed to be like a max 20-minute podcast, and I gotta tell this quick story and then we're gonna say goodbye. Because you know I gotta call you out.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

She's gonna call me out.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

When I first met Jason about a year and a half ago in the choir, and he was promoting this book at church, Agape International Spiritual Center.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 26:46

And I went and I said, Oh, let me support my brother, my choir brother. Let me buy this book. I got in the line to have him autograph it, and I tried to give him a pass, y'all. I don't know if you remember this. I tried to give him a pass.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

She probably didn't.

SPEAKER_04 27:00

I was like, you don't have to autograph it. She wrote it because I had a feeling Jason did not know my name. Okay. But he's like, no, no, I'm gonna autograph it. So he opens it up and gets out his pen and he goes, What's your name again? So then he wrote a song here. Um what's it?

SPEAKER_00 27:21

It was a one-liner.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Live love is your essence.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Love is your essence, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

One one line.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

But then today he came in and he wrote like something real. So thank you. I can't wait to read it.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Because I because I always have a feeling. And uh uh, like I always have the upload that I get whenever I look at someone.

SPEAKER_04 27:50

Oh, so that was real? I just thought you were just writing some balls.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

No, no, I was like I did. No, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

Love is my essence.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Love is your essence. But that's that's just but that's truth. That's principle.

SPEAKER_04 28:04

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

You're welcome. I love you too. I love you too. Right, Ovin.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

So until the next episode, may your soul's journey be joy-filled and abundantly blessed. And may you shine your light so brightly that it not only illuminates the path for you, but for every being you meet along the way.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Thank you so much for walking with me today. Until we walk again, see you next week.