Hey, friends. So glad that you hopped on again this week to hear another amazing interview with someone that God is doing amazing things in their lives. I am Willow Weston. If you're new to this podcast, I'm the founder and director of Collide, which is a women's ministry. We're a nonprofit located in the Pacific Northwest, but trying to reach and impact lives all over the nation. And we have so many ways that we do that. And one of my favorite ways is this podcast.
I love that I get to sit down with people who share stories of God showing up and doing beautiful things in the brokenness and doing powerful things in the mess. And today I got to sit down with someone who is and has experienced just that. Tony Collier is a HOPE coach. He's the author of Brave Enough to Be Broken and the founder of Broken Crayons Still Color, which is an international women's ministry that helps women process their brokenness and reclaim hope.
She's a popular speaker and consultant and helps organizations and is just plain fun and passionate. You'll hear her talking about food blogging, twerking, her own powerful story of how Jesus showed up and collided with her in her brokenness. So take a listen, Toni. I've already had so much fun offline with you that I almost feel bad that people couldn't listen in on you sharing about just like your crazy daily life. You're coming in hot from Atlanta, right? That's right, baby. Atlanta.
But I'm from Texas though. Don't get it twisted. You know, very different places. I feel like you're a big city girl. I mean, I'm in this like mid size Pacific northwest town, like 80 to 100,000 people. And you're like, in Atlanta. That's right. Come on. Do you do for fun in Atlanta? I eat. Okay, here's what I say. Here's what I say all the time. If ministry doesn't work out, if I get canceled, if I am found twerking somewhere, you just never know. Okay, I'm going food blogger. Okay?
I have a whole strategy, I have a plan, I have a way out. You know what I'm saying? But I just love great food experiences and I love to share it with my friends. I have good eats lists for like every city I've ever visited. It's my thing. So I eat working while food blogging. That's you can like. I'm just saying I'll have the freedom to do it if things go awry with ministry.
Okay, well, we'll all get canceled at One point or another, you were just sharing with me just this crazy season of life you're in. You just came off of having a kiddo, and you're kind of coming back from maternity leave. How does that feel to kind of come back into the crazy hustle of juggling and all of that? All the things. It literally feels like I'm flying a plane while building it. That's what it feels like. It's piece by piece, wing by wing, like sea by sea.
It quite honestly feels like I'm just doing all the things at one time. And what's crazy but also exhilarating about that is that I know that I can't do it by myself. So it's got to be the Lord, okay? Like, every day I'm waking up. I'm dependent on him for everything, even small things, like going to get coffee and put my kid in the freaking car seat and hoping that he strapped in correctly, you know? And so it's. It's exhilarating.
But I think it's a. It's like a selfless, refining faith building season. And I'm excited about it because I think that's kind of where God does his best work. I'm like, y' all are gonna get 20% of Tony right now and 80% of him, and so it's just gonna be better, you know? I love that so much. I was sharing with you offline. It's such a crazy season when you just have a kid. And I remember sort of looking at other women, and they look like they are nailing it.
And I was having all of this, like, I don't know what I'm doing. And that sort of made me spiral into, like, I don't have a family legacy of anyone I can look to as a mentor to go, oh, this is how I should be, Mom. Momming. And this is a healthy mom, and this is what it looks like to invest in my kids. And I. I was like, I am freaking out. Like, this isn't easy. And then you see your friends, and they're just like. You know, they've got it all nailed down.
Like, they can change a diaper with one hand. They can walk breastfeed. They can work outside the home and work inside the home. I mean, they're just, like, nailing it. It's kind of weird things going on. Do you think they're really nailing it or not opening up about how they're not nailing it? And. Or do you think some of us just are, like, failing? Failing and Failing, failing and failing. No, I. Well, first and foremost, I always have to guard myself from the comparison trap.
Sandra Stanley, one of our mentors and pastors, she has this devotional. She talks about the comparison trap, and it is a thing. Like it is. Our brains are ruminating around comparison all the time. And so I think it starts with that, with the foundation of. In the present, of how am I doing compared to someone else. However, I think when Paul wrote to the church in Corinth and he said that God's grace is sufficient for us, he spoke in this very intimate way.
He said, the Lord said to me, paul, my grace is sufficient for you. And he could have really written that in all the different ways he could have spoken to the church of Corinth very generally, like, hey, guys, just a reminder, God's grace is sufficient.
But I think that Paul wrote it in that way, very personal, very specific, because I think he needed us to know that there is a grace, and it is specifically assigned to us, that we don't have to look to our left and right and compare ourselves and to compare our stories, because God's got a grace, and it's sufficient for our ratchetness, our inability to change a diaper with one hand, our stories. And so when I think when you start doing that, it helps, but I don't think it takes it all away.
I think we're still going to naturally drift to that. There's a girl on my timeline. I really want to say, like, her whole name because she has the most beautiful page, but I want to call her out, but she just had a baby, literally same time as me, and she's been on the beach, and I'm just like, at one point, I was like, surely she's not breastfeeding. Like, surely, you know, like, she's maybe formula feeding. This is why it's so much easier for her.
And then the next day, she's, like, left my breast pump. I was like, oh, freak, what's going on? And it just reminded me that, you know, it's our highlight reels on social media when you don't know someone intimately and deeply, and I don't know this girl at all intimate, intimately and deeply. It robs us of the totality of other stories, and it robs us of embracing our full story as well.
And so I just think it's just this weird cycle, this comparison trap cycle that we're in, and we just got to be careful and mindful of, you. Know, so you're coming out of your. Your maternity leave Jumping back into vocational ministry stuff. You're the founder of Broken Crayons, still color. Can you kind of invite us into how this ministry came to be? Okay, girl, long story short, I'm trying to make it short. Okay, we got time, Tony. We got time. Okay? We good? We good? We're good.
Okay, we're at the. We're at the coffee table, girls. All right? We're on the couch right now talking about all the things. I got my coffee, you got your coffee. I. My little mug over here. I mean, we're doing our thing, you know? You know, Broken Crayons came out of brokenness, like. And much like many of our purpose driven goals and projects, like, it typically comes from a place that's real intimate and real personal to the founder, the owner.
And for me, it was that I was processing through divorce with a really toxic marriage with a one year old. I was broke, okay? We were on WIC and food stamps and all kinds of financial assistance. I was transitioning from a really spiritually manipulative church or a church leader. And it was just one of those seasons where it was just dumb. Like everything was broken. Like it just was ratchet all the way around.
And I found myself cleaning up all these crowns that my daughter had robbed of their dignity. She just ripped them apart, taking all their little clothes off. They were naked. It was crazy. I'm sitting in the middle of my living room floor and I'm just like, this is my life. Like, this is what it feels like. Everything is broken. I've been stripped of all my dignity. I don't feel like I can ever do ministry again.
At that point, I was working at a church as a youth pastor and it just really sucked. I was like, dang, everything has just fallen apart from the top to the bottom. And I remember I was speaking at a middle school every week. And I had my last time speaking there before I went on a break and essentially said, I don't even think ministries for me anymore. And I was like, what am I about to tell these 200 middle schoolers? Like, I. Everything's falling apart.
Like, what am I about to preach to these babies? And I go upstairs, put my daughter to bed, and I'm scrolling on instagraasy and I just roll across this quote, broken crown, still color. And I was like, I'm gonna preach about that. And it was all God. And honestly, I cried through half the message. And these 13 year olds were probably like, ma' am, you need to go home. Okay? But it was one of The.
It was one most powerful messages I'd ever preached because I just talked about how you can be broken but still standing on a stage and not broken in like an unhealthy, toxic way, which is a whole another conversation. Hello, somebody. Because we've seen all these pastors fall, but we will just save that for another conversation, but in a way that says your weaknesses, don't discount you from the power of God and what he actually genuinely wants to do in your life if you can surrender to him.
And so I just started doing this message. I. I ended up bouncing back in ministry and getting some healing, going to counseling, and. And that was the message I did. And then someone said, you need to start, like, a thing. And I started a thing and I started a blog because that's. I feel like that's how we always start, because we don't know what else to do. Started this blog. Things to say, everybody. I got something to say. I won't say it.
And so I started this blog, recruited these team members, and then we started creating resources for women to process through brokenness, to find healing courses, devotionals. And so it's been cool. It's been cool watching women heal and helping them do that through this organization. I'm tracking with you so much. It sounds so similar to the story of collide, and I won't go into it too much, but to give you a sense, a little bit of why I'm tracking so much.
I was at my house one day, my mom showed up. I just had my baby, and I hadn't lived with my mom since I was 15 years old. And here she was, like, in my late 20s, showing up in my town, moved to town to be a grandma and knocked on my door, and I went to go answer the door, didn't know who's at the door. And I, like, reverted back to a child who was wounded by her, and I went and hid in the closet with my baby.
I end up in counseling because the Lord was like, you need to step out of this closet and get healing. I show up at this counseling office and have this crazy spiritual epiphany that had very little to do with the counselor. That ended up being the concept wounded collision, which birthed collide this ministry. But the next week after I was hiding in that closet, this one girl asked me to mentor her. And I was just like, how can I help you?
Like, in the same way that you're like, what can I say to middle school students? Like, how can I be someone who could help this College age girl when I am, like, literally hiding in closets with my baby because my childhood wounds still need to be healed. And God took that girl and my investment in her turned into 25 girls meeting in my living room, which turned into what is now collide. Right.
And so why I'm bringing that up is because I think there's women listening to your story and they're listening to my story, and they're in that situation space. They're in that space where everything's falling apart and they feel brokenhearted and broke and their. Their life's a mess and they're going through a divorce like you. Or they feel like they need so much healing and they're hiding and running from the person who wounded them, whatever their story is. And they're thinking, not me.
Like, God's not going to use me to do anything because I'm a mess. Yeah. What is it that you feel like is so striking about the idea that that's exactly who God uses? Oh, man, I, It. It honestly gives me the chills. I don't know. Like, I know this is my life's calling to remind people that their brokenness doesn't discount them. Because every time I talk about it, every time I get asked that type of question, it. I, like, I don't know, I just start getting all tangly inside.
That's the holy tingle comes in, you know. Holy tingle. It's the holy tingle is what I call it. I just, I go back to Paul when he says, you know, that God is saying to us, his power is made perfect in his weakness in 2nd Corinthians 12, 9. It's like quite literally the opposite of what our world has taught us. You know, our world has taught us that it is perfection that gets us to success when really it's surrender.
And we've, We've strived, man, we have tried so hard to do it all ourselves when we started serve and have access to a God who does his best work in the valleys, his best work in the broken places. And he literally says that, like, boast all the more gladly about your weaknesses so that my power will rest on you. It's like he's the player in our lives on the sidelines of the field saying, put me in, put me in. Tag me. I've got some power for your weakness. I want to help, to restore and redeem.
He just says his best work. There's. And I think, like, I think what has happened over time is that either we've grown up, so there may be Someone listening. That's like, I grew up in this church that told me about this big mean God and I think he's the God at the end of the tunnel saying, get your stuff together and then I'll be there when you're ready. Either. It's either that and we just don't trust that there's a good God that wants to use us and actually see us in our, in our mess.
And a Jesus that comes for us or our wounds won't allow us to access his power because we've got deeply rooted insecurity that says, well, I gotta fend for myself. We've got some childhood wounds as you were talking about, that says, well, I'm unsafe and unprotected because my earthly parents and community didn't care for me, didn't tend to me. And so no way there's a God, an unseen God that will do that for me. It could even be our idols.
There's some people listening right now that you just got idols in the way that it feels better to numb with an addiction, it feels better to numb with alcohol and drugs and men and all the other things than it is to be still and wait on the Lord. And I think that the enemy has put those barriers in place from shame to wounds, to pride, to insecurity, to idols to keep us from the access of the real power of God right in the middle of our message. And that just gets me fired up.
We talk so much around here about collisions with Jesus and as you're talking, I'm thinking about the collision where Jesus runs into the woman at the well. He goes out of his way to meet her. They have this amazing banter which I don't have time to talk about right now, but at the end of this life changing collision for her, she changed so much so by the presence of Jesus. Come on, she runs, right? She runs to her village and she says, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.
Her village comes and they collide with Jesus and their lives are changed. I'm bringing up that question that, that collision to you because it wasn't like a 10 year period. She had a transformative collision with Jesus and then she went and changed her village. And I think there's this sort of like, oh, my life. I have to sweep this all up. It has to get all cleaned up. I have to be like 10 years out of having a divorce. I have to, you know, have new crayons. Not broken.
No, I gotta have it all together before God's Gonna use me to do something amazing in the world. And yet we see quite the opposite when we look at scripture. I mean, look at you. You're living proof of God. Met you in the mess, and he's using you there, too. I mean, you hopped on today and told me offline, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, just coming back from maternity, things are crazy, you know, and using you there.
Yeah. What is your advice for women who are in that place that you were in that day that you found your daughter's, and they're just feeling like, is there a chapter that's good that comes after this chapter? Mm. That's so good. I think my first piece of advice is awareness. And that's not the sexiest, you know, answer, but it is the first step, I think, in what I would call our healing journey. Because I think our healing journey collides. Hello, somebody. With our holiness journey.
I really do believe that. I believe that when we are pursuing Jesus and we are trying our best to become more like him, which is more holy, I think that the best way to go about it is when we allow it to collide with our healing. And I think healing starts with our awareness. When I look back over my life in that moment, I had to become aware that there were barriers that kept me from a life of wholeness and a beautiful life with God.
And not barriers that I could just sweep up, but barriers that I needed to bring to him, that he just wanted me to lay at his feet, not, oh, go get it all cleaned up, girl. Like, go take the time. Go do counseling. No, he really just simply wanted me to just bring it to him. And I just didn't trust him. I didn't trust him because I wasn't aware of the barriers.
I wasn't aware that when I was sexually manipulated and abused when I was young, when I. When my mom had a massive stroke and I started taking care of my mom at 8 years old and driving her to doctor's appointments at 12 years old and lost my virginity at 13, I wasn't aware that all of that was keeping me from surrendering to God. And when I became aware, like, oh, goodness. Like, the reason why I probably got in an abusive relationship was because my dad used to curse me out.
Okay. And my dad was really verbally abusive. And then I had family members that was sexually abusive. And I had a man that entered into my life that was sexually abusive. And I just. I wasn't aware that I had all of that baggage that kept me from the promises of God. And it was in that moment, in the moment of awareness that I said, man, I've got some wounds and they need to turn into adult scars because they're never going to leave my story.
It was in that moment when I was like, oh, all I need to do is surrender this at the feet of Jesus and he is going to take me on a journey of healing and wholeness and holiness. And that journey isn't just going to be, oh, let me hide you, but actually he wants to, like, flaunt me. He wants to say, look at my daughter and who I'm well pleased with, her divorce, with her abusive past, with her addictions. Look at her, look at what I'm doing through her. And so awareness is just key for me.
I think that when we look at our women's course, Step two, the Module two, it's the hardest for women because it's story mapping. When they go back and look at their story and become aware of everything that's been holding them back from wholeness and holiness, it unlocks something unimaginable. And I just, I think we gotta start there. That's what I think. We believe that God has something special in store for your life.
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This robust course is available for only $149. You can learn more or register by going to our website at wecollide.net. Yeah, go backward to go forward, right? You need to invite God to go back to those hurtful spaces and places so that you can move forward. I think what's so incredible about this story is that you not only became aware of the barriers and started inviting and surrendering those to Jesus so he could heal you, knock them out of the way. But now you're helping other women do that.
You just mentioned that you have. You also wrote brave enough to be broken, and I'd love for you to share why you believe and define bravery as being real about our brokenness. Man, here's the truth. It don't take a lot of courage to be perfect, right? Like, when I think about, like, some of my friends, and we all kind of have that one friend that's like, I mean, she's not perfect because we're. None of us are perfect. But. But, dang it, she's just so amazing, you know? Like the.
Just one of the kindest, happiest girls. It's like Susan that always brings the best charcuterie to the party. It's like, why are you so freaking nice? Why are you a Teletubby mommy? Looks like roses. And I'm like, oh, really? Okay, so you're. You're. Yeah. Okay. She's got, like, pomegranate that she's, like, divided up. I mean, all the things. You know, it is pretty easy to love that type of person, right? Like, to love that person that just shows up. That's so kind all the time.
It is what it is. But when you can bring some of the messiest, craziest, raw, foul parts of you and someone looks you in the eye and says, you're still worthy of love and belonging to, like, man, that's when it counts. Like, that's when it really counts. And the truth is, it's hard to bring that stuff. It is easy for us to use our filters because Lord knows I be using them filters on Instagram. It's easy for us to want to draw our eyebrows on so they look like sisters, not cousins.
You know what I'm saying? Just to get them real nice and even. But it's hard to say 1. As a woman, I have an addiction, and I've stepped out of my marriage or I yelled at my kids. It's so difficult to do that that it requires bravery to say, these are the things that break me. But when we do that in the presence of God and safe community and someone looks back at us and says, okay, and I love you the same. The healing starts there. And so that's what this book is about that I've just written.
Like, brave enough to be broken. Like, how to embrace your pain so you can find hope and healing. Because I actually believe that in order to find hope and healing, you gotta go through some stuff. You have to embrace the pain. And we don't want to do that. That's the awareness piece. We don't want to go back. We don't want to look at what's been done to us. We want to push that thing right under the rug and we want to keep it moving.
But when we embrace it, man, what a refining but hope filled process. And that's it, that's the message. Yeah, I feel like we fast forward brokenness to try to get to wholeness, but that stuff doesn't go anywhere. It's like we're sweeping it under the rug. We're trying to pretend it's, it's gone, it's in the past, it's in a rearview mirror. But yeah, if we don't stand in the presence of Jesus and really have him go backwards with us and deal with our stuff, like it doesn't go anywhere.
I'm kind of curious where you think we're getting it wrong in Christian community, because I think in a lot of ways we are. I mean, you're talking about the importance of being brave enough to be broken with other people. And there's something powerful when you can be. How can we create spaces where women can be brave enough to be broken? And how are we ruining those spaces? Listen, first and foremost, I'm trying not to bring the church into this. Okay, the little sea church.
But I do think there's something to be said about church history and the way that we fashion church. I think there was a church that was for the saints. It was like, bring all the nice Christian people inside, keep all the ratchet other people outside. We're going to protect the saints. And we just got to be perfect. And for many of us who grew up in that. I grew up Catholic, then my mom was Baptist, and then, I mean, I got all the denominations. I kind of went to a charismatic church.
Then I went to North Point, which is not charismatic. Okay. Under Andy Stanley. And now we have a church of our own that's kind of a melting pot of all of it. But the consistent thing I hear from a lot of people is I grew up in a church that said I had to be perfect. And if I, if I didn't, I would probably go to hell. God would probably be so mad at me if I did this. The purity culture, I mean, all the things then. So I think that was our first mistake.
I think our second mistake was we kind of swung the pendulum back a little too hard and we said, come as you are, come on, we'll just take you. Because we were just so mad that we had to be perfect that then we said, it don't even matter. You can go to the club, you can twerk, can do all. You can have an addiction. You can drink a lot of it. It's like, okay, well, no, we need to just be calm about the drinking.
But we swung the pendulum so much, and I think it robbed us of our ability to live in the gray, to live in the area that says, yes, we're imperfect and that is where our humility comes from. But also, we have access to so many resources to help us to be healed and whole people that we can have confidence in that we can have confidence in Jesus to help get us. But we have to do our work, though. And I look at my generation, I'm like a young millennial, I guess she was.
I'm 31, and I look at all these, you know, Gen Z, and it's like, we gotta do our work. Like, this is not easy. The healing process is not linear, and it's extremely painful. But it's worth it because I believe that God has not called us just to be Bible thumping. I know every scripture because we got Bible thumping. I know every scripture. People, that's just mean. They just mean it's okay. Now. You know every bit of the Bible, but you don't know how to treat people.
And you probably don't know how to treat people because you got some wounds that you need to heal. I think that comes from us being able to just ride the messy middle, to swing in the pendulum right in the middle and to find a space that says, and I think it's what we can do as Christian leaders that says, come with your mess. We will be with you in the valleys, but we're not going to leave you there. You're not about to stay in the valleys.
There is going to come a moment where you're going to say, oh, man. Anxiety has not held me back as much as it used to. I'm not having as many suicidal thoughts and ideation as I used to. Depression has not gripped me for days. I got my appetite back. I'm not addicted to this anymore. I can claw my way out because I have accountability and people and I put the things that I need to put in place. And there may be another valley in the future, but I won't get caught there either.
And we just got to start just. It's. It's like the pendulum. It's like it's not one thing, you know, it's just like the gray. It's the gray area we got to get better at the gray. Yeah. It's. We have a very hard time sitting in people's pain. We. We want to fast forward their brokenness and get them to wholeness. Right. So we're like, let me just dose out some prescriptions for you, some answers, some b scriptures, and pray over you, and then we want you to be better.
And by creating safe spaces for people to be honest, that they're on a journey, they're in a process, and they're not. Yeah. In a great place. Yep. 100. I feel like we're not passing out permission slips for people to be honest about their brokenness because we just want them to be whole so we don't have to deal with them. Dang. I. Okay. Yes. All right. I do think that that is. That. That is one part. We don't have to deal with it, but it's. But I think it's hard, man.
Like, it's difficult for us to sit with people in. In Valleys. And the truth is, we also have to be mindful that we're not trying to be people's holy spirit. Right? Like, that we're not trying to play God's role, but also that we're tethered enough to people to be, as Ann Voskamp says, Jesus with skin onto them and walk with them through the process and the journey. But that starts with us doing our own work, right? Like, doing our own work and then being able to help people through theirs.
And then boundaries. I mean, good Lord, we could go so many ways with this conversation and have our own boundaries, boundaries that are strong enough to keep the bad stuff out and permeable enough to let the good stuff in. It's just. It's always this kind of give and take. You know, let's talk about you being called a hope coach. Hey, you are passionate about, like, sending shame packing and instilling hope in women. How are you seeing women losing hope?
And what do you want to instill back into them? Yeah, I can't. One of my. So when we. When we first did our women's course, which is called the Hopeful woman course, there was a woman that was like, you're like, my own personal hope coach. And I was like, ooh, I like that. And I was like, I'm adopting that thing. And she said, because.
And she said, it's not Tony because you are ignorant or you don't embrace the darkness, and you're not in the brokenness with us, but it's because the way that God has fashioned you, you Always see a way out. And I love it. Made me feel so good for her to say that. Because I never want to be the person that's dismissive. I never want to be the Teletubby girl that's just like, yay, everything's so good. Because I was her.
I was her that said, oh, I'm not going to tell anybody about our broken marriage and the doors ripped off the hinges and the holes punched in the walls and the stack of plates that's been punched through. I'm just going to get on stage, act like everything's just fine, and post on social media and keep it moving. I was that girl that was like, that had fake hope and fake peace. And then I said, no, this doesn't work. Like, I want authentic, real hope.
And I believe that authentic, real hope comes from doing your work, comes from digging deep into the places that wounded you. When we think about trauma on. I mean, when we think about trauma, it has layers to it. Some of us have healed our traumas spiritually. And that's amazing. We've said, oh, man, no, I'm not alone. I am actually protected. Psalm 91 says that God sends angel armies to be around us and he'll fend off all harm. He'll give us a long drink of salvation. It's like, boom.
That's the spiritual level of trauma. But then there's also the psychological level of trauma for you to start actually thinking differently and feeling differently. But then there's also a cellular level of trauma where trauma has gotten in your body that only comes with trauma treatment. Emdr. There's work to be done, especially for those of us that have experienced, you know, lots of trauma throughout their entire life. There's work to be done.
And as a quote, unquote, hope coach, I'm not here to make it look cute. I'm here to get you to the other side so that you can experience the fullness of life, so that you can stop leaking on your kids, all your toxicity and your spouse and your friends, so that you can actually have, like, real, authentic peace. Like, and there's just. I don't know, it's just something better. I'm telling you, on the other side of doing hard work, hard healing work. What do you think?
Because right now, in some ways, people could look at your life and, and see you kind of got your happily ever after in the sense that youhavetwo kidsand you'redoing greatand God'susingyoutodoamazingthings. Yeah. In this world. What that in between period, between now and the broken crayon experience, the broken doors and, you know, your divorce. What. What helped you move to get to the other side? What were the things that God used to help get you to this other side that you now live?
Yeah. Well, first and foremost, let me say I have not arrived. It's one of the things I kind of like about social media because it's like, real time. Like, I like the Insta Story game a little bit because it's real time. This is what's happening today. And one of the things that I'm really doing to leverage my social media is to get people to understand that I have not arrived. That. Actually, I made a post just yesterday about how difficult it was for me to leave my house and go and get coffee.
I used to go to this coffee shop every single day, but it took everything in me and a little bit of tossing and turning at night and some anxiety and gripping the steering wheel with both my hands to simply go and get coffee. And I felt really embarrassed by that. And then I said, no, I'm going to choose kindness. Kindness to myself over shame, because shame's trying to come in right now. I see you, sis.
Okay. The reason why that's important is because you need to know that when someone like me, who has been through so much trauma, it doesn't just evaporate and leave. It sticks with my body. I had a counseling session three days ago where I just cried because I realized that I had done the first two layers of healing from something that happened to me traumatically. But my body still has kept the count. And so now I got to go back into emdr, and I'm like, dang, this sucks.
But I want and crave and will fight for healing. So let me just say that I would say the things that help me was healthier community. I believe that you cannot heal in the place and with the people that broke you in the first place. I think the cliche saying, you know, you are. You become who you hang around, like, that's so cute and sexy or whatever, but no, really, if you. You want to live a healthy life, you better look at your community and the people around you.
I had to transition some people out, and it sucked. And it's not like transitioning out of my life, but I transitioned them into another space in my circle. And I talk about that in the book a lot. And even Jesus has circles. And I have this diagram in the book that kind of talks about how to transition People into different spaces so that they don't have so much access to your. The most intimate parts of you when you're trying to heal.
I would also say tangibly, if, you know, for the book readers, there's a book called Captivating by John Eldredge changed my freaking life. It was amazing. It just. I mean, it's just great. I would say just read it. Like, I ain't got to explain all the things. Read it if you're looking to hear from God, understand your femininity, and really access the spiritual level of healing. Captivating. John Eldredge, Priscilla Shire's war room. That was huge for me because. And the book is called Fervent.
The reason why it was huge for me is because it taught me how to pray. I was a fan of God, not a follower. And that book taught me how to go from, like, the, you know, like the stands where it's like, oh, yeah, Jesus is so cool. Like, this is amazing, too. No, Jesus, I will follow you anywhere to the depths, up, down, all around. Wherever you got for me and my purpose in my life, I will follow you there. That was another real good, tangible thing. And then counseling, like, it is what it is.
I mean, good Lord. I. I can't even. I'm. I can't even exist at this point without counseling. I don't want to. I want to go and process my emotions. I want to go and understand how my brain and my neurons are connecting to the way that I feel. That's connecting to the way that I act and treat my family and the people around me and how I lead. I want that. I crave it. And so counseling, like, go and get. Just go. Just go. Just go on.
That's why we have the counseling program here to help when we get counseling. I'm so about that. I love that you just sort of laid out some of the things that helped you, because I think it gives women even a next step of how can I begin to engage some things that will help me move from today to tomorrow. Right. Oh, one of the things that's interesting about you, you have a podcast you host, and you're inviting people to share how their lives were rebuilt.
And you say rebuilt with grit and hope. We talked a little bit about you being a Hope coach, but I want to hear from you before we close out today. Why is grit so crucial to rebuilding? That's really, really good. Because it's hard. Okay? Like Romans 5, I'm like, I'm spitting off all the scripture, and I'm just Praying that I. I actually am remembering it all correctly. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, don't. Don't quote me. Yeah, there's definitely people in their cars right now.
They're like, cross referencing. They are. They're on the freaking Bible app and they're calling me out. They're calling me wrong. Just kidding. You're gonna get canceled and be that food blogging twerker soon. That's right. It's about to be over. Okay, I think that is Romans 5, I'm not mistaken, where Paul's writing to the church, or hopefully the church in Rome, the people in Rome.
And he's talking about this idea of God's glory and how his glory, if we really want access to it, it's gonna be through suffering. Because suffering produces this endurance, this perseverance, this ability to endure hard things. And we're talking about a guy who's like, in jail, in prison all the time. Paul's like, on boats, starving for days. I mean, it's just crazy. We're talking about someone who suffered, who knows what it is like to suffer for the gospel.
And again, we don't want to fall into the comparison trap. Like, we not all missionaries out here. We're not all disciples, okay? Starving and going to prison. But there is something about suffering so that we can be the best versions of ourselves, so that we can be more like Jesus. Because, I mean, that's what we're getting to here.
When you are toxic, when you have things that tear down the fabric of your emotions and the way that you process things and the way that you treat people, it robs you of the ability to be more like Jesus. The very thing that we've been put on the earth to be. I mean, I used to curse out, pop off, be all kinds of stuff. Not because I was a bad person, but because I had bad experiences. And cursing people out was the way that I was taught how to treat people, how to handle conflict.
And I didn't know what love was. And that's why I ended up in a relationship where I thought love was fighting and screaming all the time. We have to do our work. And in order to actually do our work, we have to have some grit to get through it, because it sucks. I just want to say that again. I want people to know that I am not saying the healing process is some little dainty, beautiful, Care Bear type situation. It is very, very difficult. It's difficult to face what you've been through.
And sometimes it gets worse. Before it gets better because when you're in trauma, you numb and you actually don't even have the time. Right. Because you're just surviving. You don't even have the time to sit down and ask yourself, how did that make me feel? What emotions do I have right now? But when you do get the time and you start to feel everything, you better have some grit. You better. You better. Because it's hard. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I love so much that you are allowing God to show up in your pain and your mess and use you there and invite other people to know that he can do the same with their lives. And your grit is inviting other people to know that it's possible. It's possible. And so I'm so grateful for you and your story and that you hopped on here today. And I know people are going to want to check out your book. Book and your courses and your ministry. How can they do that? All the things so.
Tonyjcallier.com T O N I J C O L l I e r.com I just updated my website. It's so cute. Hook, line and sinker. I saw your cutie girl first day pictures. I saw it. Okay. I did. Thank you. It's cheerleading out that okay. Yes. On all the things. Tony J. Collier. On all the things. And everything's on my site from the book. You can pre order the book. I still can't believe I have a book. And I'm talking about a book. You can listen to the podcast. We just did season one. That's crazy.
It's such a beautiful podcast. So many just meaningful stories of grit and hope and. Yeah. And I'd love for you to come and check it out. Come and check it out. Get yourself some resources. That's awesome. Thank you for hanging out, Toni. Yay. Thank you for having me. Friend. I'm so glad that you joined me today to listen to Toni's story. I hope it inspired you in some way. One of the things that stood out to me, she kept saying this phrase, we want to keep it moving.
And I thought it isn't that true. We kind of just want to keep it moving. We want to move on from yesterday's pain and dream about tomorrow's future. We want to sweep it under the rug. We want to hope the pain and the hardship goes away. And yet it starts to stack up. Right? And all our issues and insecurities and barriers and obstacles and shame start to layer upon, layer upon. And before you know it, that rug that we've been sweeping everything under doesn't look like a rug anymore.
In fact, there's so much mess underneath it, and we can feel overwhelmed. And if that's you, if you've been just trying to keep on moving forward, but you're carrying all this stuff from your past in with you into today, my invitation for you is to just pause and stop and hand all of that to Jesus and ask him to meet you in the mess. Ask him to meet you in the brokenness. Surrender all the things that you wish you weren't carrying.
This idea that you can just keep moving forward and none of your past will travel with you. That's a myth. It's not true. But there's hope. Because God can handle all of it. He can handle all the mess. He can handle all the shame. He can handle all the things that you wish weren't a part of your story. So my hope this week is that you would continue to collide with Jesus and allow him to enter into those broken places and that you would experience his beauty.
So, friend, if you listen to this podcast and you think that there's a friend of yours that you care about that needs to hear this message, just go ahead and share it. Just the simple act of sharing can bless someone else's day. And I will catch you next week. Keep colliding.