Hey there. So glad you hopped on the Collide podcast. This is Willow Weston, and I just sat down with Amy DeBrucque, and she is a wife, a mom of four kiddos. She's the author of a book called Embolden. She's host of the Life on Purpose podcast. And in this conversation that her and I just had, she was so, so honest about the pain that she's experienced.
She has experienced a lot of hardship, and this woman, I promise you, has chosen to reframe her hardship, has chosen to navigate it in ways that she decided she didn't want fear to boss her around and anx, but instead courage. And she's using the things she's gone through, the hardships she's gone through, to help other people go through hard things. She's inspiring, just an everyday woman that I think you and I could be encouraged by. So take a listen.
Amy, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. Of course, you had me as a guest on your podcast, and now we get a tradesies, which is super fun. So thanks for being here. My gosh, thank you. I'm excited to talk to you today. I know you're tuning in from where? I'm tuning in from Kentucky today, but mostly I'm based out of Central New York. Wow. So, yeah, I love that the Lord. Can connect us, and we're so far apart. The Pacific Northwest to, you know, east coast is amazing.
Yeah. Well, I always feel like one of the benefits and one of the things I love about podcasting is the ability to connect with other people that God has waiting for us, and you just wouldn't be connecting with in everyday life. And so it's a great opportunity to meet people like you and just really kind of glean off of the wisdom that everybody's sharing. Yeah, I think that, too. You wrote a book called Embolden. You have a podcast. You're a confidence coach. You are writing things.
God is using you in people's lives, and this didn't just happen out of nowhere. You have a pretty tough story that you've experienced, endured, and that you share often. Can you kind of take us back to some of the parts of your story that God's now using to minister to other people who are in those same hard places. Sure, sure.
So a little back story on me is, you know, I grew up in the Catholic Church, and at that time, as I was entering into young adulthood, I was probably, like, 24, actually, and I was engaged to be married, and for the first time, we had experienced real tragedy My brother had gotten diagnosed with a brain tumor. And then within that time frame, you know, a year had gone by. I had gotten married, I had gotten pregnant. And then during that time, my brother had been declining.
And then I had given birth to my firstborn son, Alex. And then about 16 days apart, both my brother and my son passed away. Oh, my goodness. My son's, of course, was an unexpected tragedy. We. We didn't know there was anything wrong with him. Essentially, he ended up having a heart attack at 4 months old. Come to find out, he had had a left coronary artery that had not been formed. It wasn't visible normally, I think heart deficient or any kind of birth defect in the heart.
Babies aren't thriving, and he did not have that. So it was a real shock. Kind of turned our lives upside down immediately. And it really took me on a really bad course of severe anxiety. Now, one thing I will say at that time in my life is that I referred to my faith at that time was a very immature faith.
I had still in early adulthood, what I call I was riding on the coattails of my parents faith still at 24, 25, 26, and not really had taken that ownership role of what it would, what it really meant, what that personal relationship meant. Now I. I went on and I didn't end up, you know, I'm not. I don't practice Catholicism today. I have a non, non denominational church that I attend.
And I have nothing against that, but that's the path that I needed to take in order to really understand what it looked like to have a personal relationship, to grow in my faith and to really have an understanding of things beyond my control, because that produced 15 years of severe anxiety. But within that anxiety, as we all know, it's a huge burden. It's a lot of bondage, and it's really because of the control factor. And I was scared. I wanted to control the outcome.
I wanted to know what was gonna happen. I went on to have four more children within that time, but I missed a lot of moments and memories because I was on that hamster wheel of just, you know, getting through survival mode, wanting to control everything to the point where I wasn't really present, if that makes sense. I'm sure somebody listening maybe can resonate with that.
And it really wasn't until I turned 40, when I jokingly always say that most people are planning their midlife crisis, that I received a cancer diagnosis. And so it was at that time I felt like leading up to those 15 years, you know, God had sent a lot of signs and signals along the way. I also think he was probably like, wow, she's. We've got a slow one here. We're going to have to present something really spectacular for her to, you know, to see and have this crossroads.
And I felt, to me, the cancer diagnosis essentially saved my Life. That was 14 years ago, and it really was the first time as an adult I had to decide, am I going to keep trying to control the rest of my life and what may or may not occur, or am I going to surrender it all to him and let it go? Amy, I don't think most people would ever say the sentence, the cancer diagnosis saved my life. I don't think most people would ever imagine uttering that sentence.
Did you feel that immediately, in the moment? What happened in that process that made you be able to just now say that, that statement? Well, I mean, of course I was scared, right? I had four little children. My youngest had. Was getting ready to start kindergarten. So I was scared for sure. But I had been preparing for that. I had been mentally worrying about me dying, one of my children dying. So I was kind of. I was kind of ready for it, essentially.
And, you know, which is so interesting, because it's like, be careful what you pray for, right? You may actually get it. And it was a. So to me, it was, yes, it was a great point of fear, but it was really a culmination of everything that I had been afraid of. And now I was actually presented with it. So now it was like, okay, well, here it is. What am I going to do with it so shortly?
I mean, I would say fairly quickly after that diagnosis is when I remember vividly just getting on my knees and saying, take it. I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm scared doing this, but I just. I don't want it anymore. It was such a burden to carry fear for that long, and I just. It stole my everyday joy. And I thought, if I have three more months with my kids, I want to actually enjoy them. So interesting.
What do you think it takes for us when we're experiencing something extremely difficult or even mildly difficult to do this reframing that you did, where you had negative news and you reframed it into something positive, something God could do? The cancer diagnosis saved my life as a reframe of a. Of a hard thing. What's your advice on how we can reframe something hard, actually being something that we need or something good?
I think, for me, you know, the fear was obviously Provoked with grief, a lot of insecurities about next steps. And so it really became down to a choice. And so that's how I kind of redefine it. And I encourage women to redefine hard things like that. Is that essentially it's not about how we're feeling, it's about what we're choosing to do with whatever comes our way. And I think once we can reframe it in that way, that does give us the control back. That does give us a lot of freedom.
It does give us the power. No, we might not know what the outcome is going to be, but we're choosing to trust. We're making an intentional choice. And there's a lot of freedom and control in that. And I think if we recognize that all the other things that we're trying to control that are not really in our control, it's just a waste of time and space and energy. And really, like I said, just your everyday joy. How did you. This is just a lot of hard.
You're brother passed away, your son passed away, then you get hit with cancer. How did you hold on to faith in the middle of having all these hard things happen? I think at the time I was. Well, I definitely had a solid group of people faith based. My sister was a rock. I was kind of just getting through, I think because it had always been my foundation. Even though I had not established at that time what the personal relationship was that would come after I surrendered.
I think it was just always there though. It was just always living within me. And so it was enough to get me through. But it really wasn't until after the surrender piece. And I think that was the disruptor. I was the disruptor in that healing process. I was hanging on. I was creating year after year of that anxiety and fear because I was unwilling to let go. I was unwilling to make the choice to let him take over and trust. And so I think we have to be careful of that.
I think obviously it's human nature for grief and there's no timetable and I'm not saying any of that. But I think if we have the ability and the willingness to take a step back and say, am I the one who's getting in the way of this and why is that? So. And then we can start kind of peeling back the layers. And for me it was. It was a real immature faith that I had just kind of crumbled when everything else crumbled. And so I think it's.
I really try to encourage young women especially too that there is a really distinct difference between, you know, you growing up in faith and taking it on for your own because you don't know what life's going to throw your way. And when we're young, we feel like we're invincible, right? And I remember specifically an incident before my brother was even diagnosed and his. A friend of his actually had gotten ill and.
And I remember at his funeral thinking, wow, I can't even imagine this happening to my family. And, you know, walking out and doing my own thing. And it just doesn't process as much. I think when you're a young adult. And I was very unprepared. So I really, hopefully I'm encouraging women to be more prepared because life can be hard and it can just throw you a curveball that you don't expect.
And that's really kind of where that came from, is just knowing and understanding after the fact that I need to really seek out the relationship with God and what he's trying to do and work through me. When you think about a woman who right now could be facing a lot of hard things, hitting her all at one time, and she's starting to lose trust in God and God's goodness and God's care for her in God's reality, what's your advice for her?
I think it's really key to not let our feelings override God's goodness. When we're in hard times, when we're in grief, when we're in the thick of it, we're not feeling God's presence. Right? It's easy to support the woman next to us who's going through something hard because it's not us, because we're not experiencing that. We're in the. We're in living in that goodness. But when we're not living in that goodness, it's hard to feel it.
But if we can just get past the feeling portion and just remember this is the one. One little hack I try to encourage women is if you're in that space right now, try to go back and remember the last hard thing that you got through, that God got you through. It could be something small in comparison to what you're going through right now, but you got through it and he was with you at that time, and it matters.
And the reason it matters is because that's the encouragement, that's the promise that he's walking with you through this hard thing. And it may seem like it's endless, but you got through the last thing and you will eventually get through this thing. And so I think that remembering. I think a lot of times we. And I know from experience, I try to just rush through, right? You wanna just keep moving, don't stop, just keep. But it would have really benefited me to stop and remember.
And then maybe that would have given me a little more comfort when I wasn't feeling it or when I wasn't seeing it in my timing to know, okay, I know he will come through because he's come through for me in the past. I absolutely do that myself. I have to almost preach to myself. I mean, you see the psalm. Psalmists do this where they remind themselves what they've seen God do in the past, in history with humanity.
But it also reminds me, as you were talking about that song, and I don't know who sings it, but the same God. Like, same. It's called Same God. And it's the same God who did this, is the same God who will show up in your life right now. And so it's just the recalling of what we know to be true about God that we have seen in our own lives, that we've seen in history with humanity and scripture. He's the same God for us, and I think, think that can be a powerful tool.
You also say that fear's normal, but courage gets the final say. Tell us a little bit more about that in practical ways that we can actually claim and act on courage. Well, I like to say fear is normal because it is normal. And I don't ever want anybody to think, okay, well, I'm afraid, and so what's wrong with me? Because there's nothing wrong with you. We all experience fear. But I think when we.
We talked about earlier, when we're able to reframe what courage actually looks like when we're redefining courage as a choice when we're not feeling it, then again, that gives us the power and authority to kind of claim that in our lives. And there's a lot of freedom in being able to just lay it all out on the table. You know, sometimes I visualize, like, almost like in the Western, where they have to put their guns up on the counter and just like, you know, okay, just take them.
You know, now I'm free of all of that bondage. And it's the same idea. If we could wake up every morning and just like, lay all that out, lay everything that's, you know, we're not meant to carry out for him. That's the courage part. And we can let that be what really does get the final say in our lives. What drives us to show up, to get up when we're not feeling it? Because those things are hard.
And sometimes, I mean, I remember just making my bed was a huge accomplishment when I was in the thick of grief, just, you know, cleaning the kitchen. And I'm kind of a neat freak, so that may seem like a weird example, but my kids would laugh and say that they can't even imagine that. But that was the season of life I was in. And so that's why I say if we can reframe it and choose courage despite our feelings and. And surrender those things.
Surrender the fear of, you know, failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of what's to come next. You know, there's a lot of living in a space of what if? That is a. That's a. That's bondage. That's. You know, there's no freedom in that, but there is freedom in saying, I don't know what is next, but I trust that you do, and it's going to be okay. It's not okay right now, but I trust it will be okay.
And so if we could lay those things out every morning, I think that's where we're able to live in courage. I love the call to surrender, and it's something that's very hard to do. I find sometimes that I need to surrender something and then I need to surrender it like, 12 hours later. Shop with a purpose. When you buy something from the Collide Shop, you could feel good about your purchase knowing that 100% of the proceeds go back into funding the Ministry of Collide.
That means that that adorable necklace or comfy, cozy sweatshirt you've been eyeing are not only going to look great on you, but they're also going to help more women collide with Jesus. Shop, home goods, curated gifts, apparel, and [email protected]. I love the call to surrender, and it's something that's very hard to do. I find sometimes that I need to surrender something and then I need to surrender it. Like 12 hours later.
It's like, okay, the Lord must be tired of seeing me show up in his office. No, I don't picture him in an office. This idea of moving from fear to courage, you gave a few examples of these things that you had to sort of start doing in your grief. What are some examples for a woman listening where maybe some indicators of wow. In your grief, you're letting fear take over. You're letting anxiety take over.
What would be some indicators for her to go, oh, maybe how I'M how I'm navigating, my grief is turning a little bit unhealthy, and it's actually gonna become an obstacle in my life, a hindrance. Well, the first thing I would say in regards to what you had just talked about surrendering more than one thing. One thing I do say, and I'm very honest about, is surrendering to me at 40 with that diagnosis, now I'm 54. It's not a one and done practice like you just shared.
It is a daily and sometimes 10, 12, 20 times a day submission, depending on what we're going through, depending on what is presented with us. And as far as, you know, a woman having an indicator, I would say if you feel like if you're in a space where you are holding yourself back from maybe something God is calling you to, you know, I was never somebody prone or even interested in sharing with other women hardships. That was not who I was.
I was the supportive friend, but I was not somebody really willing to go vulnerable. I could be transparent, but vulnerability was off the table. And so I think, though, God kept leaning into me like, okay, you really need to be sharing this. You really need to be sharing this. And I think, you know, when you're holding things in, when you're holding back, when you feel like there's barriers up to where God is calling you, that's a huge indicator.
And so I experienced many things that he presented me with that I just kept, you know, driving the car, kept him in the passenger seat and driving the car. And so that would be the other indicator is that are you trying to strong arm your will out of fear? Are you trying to accomplish this next thing or make this next thing happen? Because it's something that you're afraid if it doesn't, something bigger might happen.
I mean, I think that there's really, and I can't stress this enough, there's so much power in the pause. We are busy, we're always moving. We rarely take time to pause and really assess, what are we doing? Why are we doing it? What is driving this? And so I think if we could just sit down, if a woman could sit down and even just assess those things and be honest with herself, I think it would really uncover a lot very quickly.
I want to rewind back to this moment where you say your cancer diagnosis saved your life. How did you experience. You didn't know the outcome. You didn't know what would happen. You'd already experienced so many hard things. How did you experience Jesus running into that season of your life. We talk a lot around here about colliding. How did he collide with you in that time? I think he collided with me because it was something, like I said, I had been preparing for.
And so it was just like a combustible collide. I was right here. And so that was something that he brought me in. And I want to also just say for anybody who is dealing with a cancer diagnosis, I don't take that flippantly. So when I say it saved my life, I mean, I wasn't actually living before that. I was going through the motions of life, but I wasn't fully living it. And so I felt like the collide was his opportunity.
To me, it was him speaking to me, saying, not, you know, I'm punishing you with this diagnosis, but here is an opportunity and I, for you to walk with me, for you to take hold of my hand and, and trust me that we're going to get through this together regardless of the outcome. And so that, to me was the collide that I needed to, to move ahead to, to lay it all out there. Because up until that point, I was the one just doing it all. I, if you had asked me, I was doing all the right things.
I was praying. I was in, you know, my Bible, But I was still leaving him out as the main role in my healing. I essentially was trying to just fix myself. That's what I was going to say. It sounds like you were trying to heal you and you had a collision with God in a circumstance where he woke you up and invited you to trust him for the healing. So what happened with your cancer diagnosis? So I, you know, for a while, that's what you do. You live in three month increments. You get a scan.
You know, I had Hodgkin's lymphoma and my prognosis was good, you know, as cancer prognosis go. But I lived for the first year in three month increments of waiting to see what the scan said, and then it would move to six months.
And I just was kind of at that point, I had made the decision to not worry, to live fully, like I said, with my children fully engaged, fully present, basically, until those scans, right the night, the morning of the scan, and just, okay, I got another six months and I'm going to live like it's gone. And then it just, you know, it almost becomes a habit.
And then it's just like, okay, I'm trusting for six months and now I'm trusting for a year and now I I'm trusting for two years and now and then it's 14 years later and I think it just becomes just like the fear and anxiety becomes your new normal. The trust and freedom can become your new normal. I just had dinner with a friend who has cancer and it's been a really, really long, rough road. And I'm curious how you would describe it because I sort of heard how she described it.
But this whole living, it's a new way of living in these small increments of time. Three months, six months. It's definitely. I could see why you described like your collision with Jesus with this cancer diagnosis as a wake up, because it wakes you up to life. Like if you don't know how it's going to go, you don't know how long you have, you can't take things for granted. How would you say that was a terrible experience and way to live, but also maybe like a really eye opening one?
Well, I think, you know, I had chemotherapy and radiation. I had four months of chemotherapy. It was four sessions. So I had one a month. And then I had 30 days every day of radiation. And so it was an exhausting. It was, it's humbling, you know, I lost my hair at the end and it's a humbling process for sure. But I think I found more freedom in the ability to live for every minute of every day.
And so I think that was just my saving grace the whole time is that yes, I, you know, I tried to keep my life as normal as possible, but the freedom just to me personally was such a light over those three month increments and all of that because I had been, it had been so long since I had experienced anything like that. And so I was really craving it. My soul was craving it and it was stressful, but it was the most peaceful time because I, I was allowing it, I guess, for the first time.
Well, it sounds like you were choosing to let it cause you to live differently. So what would your loved ones like, your, your, you know, your family members say about Amy once she started living in these three month increments of having to trust God and be eyes open, awake to not taking life for granted. How would they describe who you were like to be around versus before that time?
Well, I think for my children, quite honestly, as I, and I think most people on the outside, I was the master, I say Willow, of saving face. I was not somebody who was really, like I said, open to knowing how bad I had had it during those 15 years. So most people did not know how bad I was struggling. They knew what I had gone through, but they did not know I presented well. I always say, like, you know, one of those new purses and then.
But if they, God forbid, opened the inside, it would have looked like a complete message. So again, that was a disservice of not feeling like I could. That was pride because I wanted to control the situation. I wanted to feel like I was doing better. I think the difference they see now is because I'm able to share that. I think they're surprised to hear how I was actually doing and the fact that I'm vulnerable enough and confident enough to be able to say that.
And the only reason that is is because of the Holy Spirit working through me and because I have made it my mission to step out of my comfort zone for the one woman who needs to hear it. And so it's a very humbling and experience and really helps you lay your pride down quickly when you are thinking that if you could help one person not struggle the way you did, it's worth it every time.
I love so much that you have experienced hard things and realized that you actually can't control whether those things come upon you or not. But you can control how you navigate them, how you endure them, how you walk through them. And you're choosing to make the hard things count, to help other people. I love that so much. I'm all about that in a million ways. I know that there's going to be people who want to hear about you and your work and they're going to want to hear about your book.
So can you tell us for a minute about Embolden? Sure. So Embolden was. I had another manuscript totally written, which is, you know, such a good thing. Right. And then I co wrote Emboldened with my oldest daughter. She was a sophomore in college at the time and she was dealing with, you know, the typical things a sophomore in college would be dealing with. And we just started journaling and writing and talking and getting these things down.
And we just came to the conclusion that, you know, she wasn't alone and there wasn't a lot out there. It was either like a Bible study or it was just journaling. And so we kind of want to combine the two things. And so that's what we did. And so it's really just a four week or it's broken up into four parts. It's not four week, but of just ways to be brave. And we do a lot of, you know, starting at the root, getting, uncovering that and what's holding you back and being honest with ourselves.
You know, it's sometimes it's hard to show up to a group laying it all out there. But if you've practiced a little bit and the book is a perfect prereq really for anything like that, if that's not your comfort zone to start the process of being showing up for yourself, pausing and being honest about what's actually going on. So that was a wonderful experience to do with my oldest daughter. I'm hoping to do one with my youngest daughter, another follow up to embolden.
But that's a great first step for someone who's not in the comfortable space yet to just show up and start talking. And I can appreciate that I'm an introvert, extrovert, more introvert. And so I really wanted to and so is my oldest daughter. And so I wanted to be able to create something that would still be helpful before you're ready to step into community. I love that so much love that you did it with your daughter.
I have a daughter and I've never thought about writing a book with her, but that's such a cute, cool idea. And Amy, I love that you have chosen to be bold and to be brave so that you can take your pain and help other people. I know there's people who are gonna wan connect with you. How can they do that? Sure. Well I would love to connect with anyone. I send out a weekly blog post with some encouragement in there. That'[email protected] Very simple. It's just first name, last name.
You can also go to amyrunderyourfear.com Spell it all out. Either one will bring you there. You can sign up, get on that list. Also hosting I'm going to be co hosting a retreat here in Kentucky in September. It's a faith based retreat for women who just need to get back to the things that matter most. And so it's called the Focus Retreat. And just to give you some time away, clarity to unplug away from all the distractions. So yeah, and I speak.
So if anybody's looking for some encouragement in their community or in their women's group, I would love to come and speak into you for sure for some encouragement. I love it. Well, thank you for speaking into our lives today, Amy. Thank you so much for having me. Friends. So glad you hopped on the podcast today. And I hope that somehow, some way, God met you and helped you experience his hope and his promises in the midst of whatever you have going.
I don't begin to know or understand what you might be facing today. But I do know that you have a God who's with you and even if it doesn't feel like he's with you, his, his reality, his life, his spirit, his love are surrounding you. And my hope today is that you would experience him and that you would know that even in the darkest valleys, in the hardest diagnoses, in the heartaches, he is right there with you, near and wants good for you.
If this was a conversation that you want to send on to a friend because she's going through a hard time, I encourage you just to share it. Such a simple thing you can do. But that's a great way to share our ministry that we have going and make it travel into the hearts and lives of the women who need the to hear it. And we would love for you to subscribe to our podcast so this can be in your inbox. And you can collide with Jesus every stinking week.
So keep colliding and we'll catch you next week.