205. Power of Movement with Alisa Keeton (Revelation Wellness)
Matthew 6:10 (NKJV) "Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven."
**Transcription Below**
Questions and Topics We Discuss:
What are some practical ways our bodies can be a part of the solution for moving through past pain and beginning a healing journey?
In what ways do you see science and faith fitting together perfectly?
You say that our bodies and brains are for us, but how would you encourage someone who feels the opposite?
Alisa Keeton is a wholehearted pursuer of God's love in heart, mind, soul, and strength. A fitness professional for over 30 years, she is the founder of Revelation Wellness, a nonprofit ministry that uses physical and mental health practices to spread the gospel by inviting participants to become integrated and whole beings through biblical teachings, on-line events, productions, and in-person retreat experiences. Alisa is the author of The Wellness Revelation and Heir to the Crown and hosts the popular Revelation Wellness podcast with over 7 million downloads. Alisa lives in Phoenix with her husband, Simon, and they have two children, Jack and Sophia. As a family, they are on a mission to change the world with the kind and courageous love of God.
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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
**Transcription**
[00:00:00] <music>
Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
[00:00:18] <music>
Laura Dugger: Leman Property Management Company has the apartment you will be able to call home, with over 1,700 apartment units available in Central Illinois. Visit them today at Lemanproperties.com, or connect with them on Facebook.
Alisa Keaton, founder of Revelation Wellness, is my guest today. She's going to share how we can utilize the science of the way God created us so that we can be transformed by His love, we can process our stress and emotions in effective ways, and how we can love others in a powerful way on earth as it is in heaven.
Here's our chat.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Alisa.
Alisa Keeton: Thank you, Laura. I'm really excited to be here.
Laura Dugger: Will you just start by sharing a bit of your story, leading all the way up to becoming the founder of Revelation Wellness? [00:01:23]
Alisa Keeton: Yeah, it's a good one. Let's see how concise I can be. Being that I'm 52 years old, I have a lot of story to tell. Well, I took my first fitness class in 1985 when I was 14 years old. It was back then called Aerobics. You went to a little strip mall where there might be a little room or office place where they cleared out all the furniture, and it was a place for a bunch of 80s moms to come.
I was 14, and my friend's mom invited me and my friend to go with her to her class. For some reason, I said yes. I was always very active in my life.
At that time, at 14, for me, I was going through what most 14-year-olds go through, is this question of, am I pretty? Am I valuable? Am I worthy? You start to question and make those transitions from childhood into young adulthood.
My home life at that time was pretty unstable. [00:02:25] There was a lot of dysfunction. My father had addictions. My mother was codependent. They were very busy chasing around their own dysfunction. I felt pretty lost in the mix of my upbringing and my home.
Physical activity always felt like something of a relief for me, a release, an escape, kind of a way to just be free. My body always expressed or felt most at home, who I am when I was moving my body. So when I took an aerobics class, I laid there at the end of that class, cooled down. I remember having tears coming out of my eyes. That had not happened before.
There was something about the collective community of being with other people, other moms that were encouraging me. You're trying to encourage one another. It's a joyful experience. It's silly. It's a freedom experience for me. I enjoyed every moment of it.
Little tears ran out my eyes and I just had this sense that God was with me. [00:03:28] I really didn't have a relationship with God then, but I felt a sense of everything was going to be all right. That's all I knew is that everything was going to be all right. There was this knowing. It didn't come from myself. It was like this voice. I didn't know to call it God, but I now can see it as that.
I started going back to that class every week. I would try to bum a ride with my friend's mom, or I would get my parents to take me. I loved it. It felt like a little place of escape.
Then I really started doing more fitness, looking for places to go do it. I joined another gym because it was the 80s, and a lot of people were doing different things, bodybuilding, all this kind of early 80s health. Really, this pursuit of you could change your body with fitness became a focus for me.
I started doing that, my body responded to it. I started getting attention for it. It all started working out, like, oh, this is the thing that I was made to do. Yet, it really became an idol for me. I did get into the fitness world. [00:04:29] I did start helping people.
I became a personal trainer. I've been in the health and fitness for over 31 years. But I did it initially as a way of trying to find my own identity, value, and worth. I could really help people. Truth be told, I could help people change their body. Even today, Laura, you want to lose some weight, I can give you the math equation.
What I ended up noticing over the years as I was growing in my love for fitness and helping people in their health and their body health was two things would always occur with anyone I would try to help. Not all the time, but primarily majority of people would become obsessive about the thing that they were changing or wanting for their body. They would just become so self-absorbed. It was never enough. They would pinch another inch. How do we change this? How do I get rid of this? I could see them critiquing themselves as never satisfied.
Then the other side of the coin would be people would get going off to a good start, investing hundreds and thousands of dollars with me to buy packages or to just be a consistent accountability for them and give them a plan and then they would fall off. [00:05:38] They would just stop coming. There was this neglect and obsess pattern that I saw continually happening.
Then in my own life, although my body wasn't necessarily... it wasn't not responding, I definitely fell in the obsess category, but I was at least able to see this is not going anywhere fruitful. I started to fall into the fitness competitive world. That I saw was dangerous. If I stay here, where could this really lead to? Somehow, and I think that was God really planting wisdom in me at an early age, that this could go into very unhealthy directions.
Then my life personally was falling apart outside. I had everything externally as far as my body, a job that was bringing in more money than my friends who had nine-to-fives out of college. But my life inside my heart was falling apart. My marriage was falling apart. I didn't know who I was. I felt insecure all the time. And that's where Jesus entered. [00:06:39]
Then when Jesus entered, I love that He didn't take my love for helping people in their health and embodiment and physical activity. He didn't squash that. He actually redirected it to this is what our bodies are for, this is why we have a body, and this is what I want people to know.
So I started leaning into the Word of God and falling in love with Jesus. Really just falling in love with Jesus. Actually, I resisted the fitness thing with Jesus for quite a bit of time. Then as I continued to just walk with Jesus, he wouldn't let me let go of this vision of helping people truly get free and out of that obsessed neglect pattern.
That's what led me to establishing in 2011 Revelation Wellness, and that's what we do. If you go to our website right now, you'll see Stop Obsessing, Stop Neglecting, and Live Free in Your Body. We do that by helping people have mental and physical health practices to grow in a wholehearted faith. And that our body is not about vanity. [00:07:42] It's about ability, and that's what we help people do.
Laura Dugger: What are some of the unique opportunities that have come as a result of this ministry?
Alisa Keeton: Oh, my gosh. I think the most unique thing about the ministry is watching how people have transformation, watching people who really never thought... Again, the obsessors who know that they have made it about something that is not life-giving and it terminates on itself... because that's what idolatry does. Idolatry is you seek after that thing, and eventually it doesn't satisfy.
So it's awesome to watch people who have been in fitness for a long time who have either struggled with eating disorders, body dysmorphia, body image disorders, feeling like their body has never been enough and constantly trying to change it, watching them come and just break from the lie that was spoken over. Really what Jesus does is because we invite Jesus into the story of their body, He reveals, that's why we're called Revelation Wellness, He reveals to them the deeper heart issue that it was always about, and He wants to walk with them in further healing. [00:08:55]
So watching people move out of eating disorders and those obsessive patterns of spending hours at the gym, counting every macronutrient of food, always walking around with their MyFitnessPal, just so much waste of time and energy, watching them heal and get free, watching them let their body change, watching them get kinder to their body, which is my story, that's been an amazing opportunity.
Then the other side is the people that have felt like they've had a little bit of fitness trauma. In other words, they were the last kid picked for the kickball team. They were the last kid in on the 30-yard or 50-yard dash, whatever it is. Watching them really come to the Lord with their pains and hurts and be truly delivered from that cycle of neglect and walk with Christ out into healing.
What we don't see in our ministry often, and I'll just shoot it to you straight, Laura, we will never see us look at this amazing before and after picture. [00:09:58] We have a lot of before and after pictures or people that could do that, but we've realized that our bodies are always changing and that our bodies were created to host heaven. They're created to steward the presence and love of God. And if we do that, then our body is going to work itself out in what it should weigh or what it should look like.
So we help people constantly come back to this inside-out approach. And that really is the message of this book, The Body Revelation, on how to heal from the inside-out.
Laura Dugger: I love how you weave in your own personal story in the writing of this recent book, The Body Revelation. But then what are some practical ways that our bodies can be part of the solution for moving past pain and beginning a healing journey?
Alisa Keeton: Yeah. I would like to say that those extremes that we fall into, whether it's obsess or neglect, really it's idolatry. [00:10:57] Again, maybe for some people it's not their body that becomes the idol, but it's money, it's friendships, it's success. That's what the enemy came to do. He came to kill, steal, and destroy. So he shoves us into these extremes of making it about that thing, turning a God thing and make it into a good thing, or completely dashing us into thinking God is good, He's not strong enough, He cannot help you, what's the point of trying? That's what he does. That is his scheme. Where Jesus came to give us life to the full.
And when we come to Christ... I don't think anyone comes to Christ skipping through the tulips. We come because we need a Savior. We come because we know we can't save ourselves from obsessing. We know we can't save ourselves from the neglect pattern. We know idolatry really tries to get our hearts and take us captive, and it does not satisfy.
So when we've lived a life in those extremes, surviving our pain and trying to behavior-modify and manage our hurt, we actually, inside your brain, we come with a lot of neural pathways and thought processes in a life that we lived prior to coming to Christ. [00:12:11] So this renewing of our mind in Romans 12 too, it's not just renew your mind because reading the Word of God is good for you. It actually renews your mind. It's truth. The Word of God will last forever. Heaven and earth will fade away, fall away, but the Word of God stands and endures. It's the Word of God that created everything.
Our bodies, who we are, created by God's Word spoken. And so our minds need renewing in who God says we are. And that pulls us out of that obsess and neglect pattern. Here's the beauty of what Revelation Wellness and the Book teaches, your mind is connected to your body and your body is connected to your mind. This is scientifically research-backed.
When you talk up to your mind, you are also talking to your body. Your beliefs, what you think, affects your biology. And your biology of how you're feeling will affect how you think. So we kind of get stuck in a loop unless we know a word or something that is truer than what we think and truer than our physical existence here on earth.[00:13:18]
This body, it's a good body, but we will also be given a new body one day, a resurrected body, a whole body, a body that is not bent, broken, and fractured because of sin. So we really need to come back to who is God? Who am I in relationship to Him? And that process of metabolizing who God is in relationship to our pain is what renews our mind, not just in a spiritual way, but in a neurological, neuropathway way. And that brings up our immune system so we are more resilient when it comes to sickness and disease.
Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor.
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[00:15:54] <music>
Laura Dugger: Well, and you bring up the brain that God has created for us. And you've done a lot of research on how we get into that higher functioning part of our brain. So can you summarize some of that for us?
Alisa Keeton: Yes, I love it. I can't believe the things I know about the brain, but honestly, this book was written out of my own quest of healing, of why do I know what is right to do? It wasn't necessarily about food or exercise. I would kind of do that as my coping mechanism.
But my soul, like I knew what was right to do. I could do all the right things externally, but internally I could not hold hope and joy and love and peace and patience and kindness for my children and my family. Like my life was not... there was disintegration. And I got after, why is this happening? I was reading the Word. I was leading Bible studies. I was doing all the things, but it was not penetrating my heart. [00:16:55] When I realized it wasn't about my heart, it was about my head.
I had come through childhood trauma. I had lived through adversity of my youth. And whether you've lived through adversity in your youth or you're now a full-grown adult living through chronic stress every day, whether it's trauma of your childhood, ongoing stress in your childhood, or ongoing stress/trauma in your adulthood, that changes the organization and structure of your brain. That is a fact.
And that's why I believe we see so much sickness and disease increasing. And that's why we see more drugs being made because we're trying to chase the symptom of our hearts have not found rest in Christ.
And although our hearts say, yes, I believe in God, until our brains have a chance to rewire and renew, and we do that with our body as well, then we will feel like hypocrites. We will confess with our mouth and believe in our heart, but yet our lifestyle won't reflect what we believe. [00:18:01]
The good news about the brain is it can be renewed. Since the 1990s, we found out that neuroplasticity really is a thing. Prior to the 1990s, if you were diagnosed with any type of mental health disorder or challenge, any type of behavior, addiction, it was just kind of thought, well, you've got to manage that. There's nothing we can do.
In the 1990s, we realized that we actually could re-sculpt the brain through something called neurogenesis, neuroplasticity. And people who exercise, people who move their body... so I want to deconstruct. Some people think, oh, gosh, I have to do burpees. I have to do a really hard thing. No, you actually just have to... if you just move your body and increase your heart rate up to a moderate pace, that area of your brain, an area of your brain called the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory and learning, mostly for memory, like it really helps you construct memory and recall memory, that part is active for people who move their bodies, who have any practice of elevating their heart rate 20, 30 minutes a day. [00:19:11]
And when we increase the activity of the hippocampus, we decrease the activity of the amygdala. People who are chronically stressed or grew up in adversity or trauma, their amygdalas are hyperactive. Everyone knows this today. If you are stressed out at work, you feel like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm going to lose my job," or "people aren't liking my work," or whatever it is, and then we compound it with emails and texts and demands, you're chronically stressed, your amygdala is more active than those who have learned to be resilient and faith and have trust that, nope, I'm a person who can rest. I do not put my faith in what I can see. I put faith in the unseen, that I have a hope that is more than what I'm living through right now, what I'm experiencing.
And like I said, when we exercise, we're increasingly neurogenesis of our brain, decreasing the cry of the amygdala, which is fight, flight, freeze, pain, cover yourself, make sure, you know, do whatever you have to do to protect yourself. [00:20:16] That gets quiet. And then we can come up to higher reasoning.
The prefrontal medial cortex for people who move their body or meditate and have an ability to sit still and breathe or move your body and think good thoughts, your prefrontal medial cortex, which is responsible for reasoning, making good decisions, having perspective, taking empathy, optimistic thinking, creative thinking, that gets more active for people who engage in some type of movement.
So that's really the message of The Body Revelation. As you go through it, we journey through metabolizing pain. So wherever you are, whether it's just you're just unhappy in your life, maybe you've lived through divorce or rejection or bullying or shame. I just believe we haven't done a good job in the church of talking about the body. And what about the pain that I hold?
Bessel van der Kolk says, and he's a psychotherapist, that our bodies keep the score. [00:21:16] Our bodies are holding onto information and pain. And that energy, as you learn in the book, in The Body Revelation, cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed into something else or transferred onto someone else.
And when we get into these physical practices that we go through in the book, we're actually metabolizing that pain. We're not running from the pain. We're not running from the stress. Stress is not a bad thing. It's just too much. Ongoing stress changes the operation and structure of our brain. So we can love Christ and give Him our lip service, but our hearts will feel far away and our bodies will pay the bill.
Laura Dugger: So bottom line, the way to get to the higher functioning parts of our brain, getting out of the fight, flight, freeze, and just stuck in the emotions and getting more to the critical thinking or the dreaming part is just simply to move that God gave us that option.
Alisa Keeton: Yeah, I will say yes to move. But the quickest way to do that, and it's the most simple way, which is connected to movement, is breathing. [00:22:19] Like everyone right now, let's just inhale for the count of five. One, two, three, four, five. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. That shifts us. Just taking a deep... Whenever we take an inhale to an exhale, we shift from sympathetic mode of our nervous system, which is our fight, flight, freeze, into parasympathetic rest and digest.
And it's so beautiful because God tells us He gives us His breath. His spirit in us is our breath of life. So when we breathe... and that's why first knowing how to breathe and then really what movement is, is amplification of the breath. So when I start to stress and I bring that breath in, I'm actually activating stress in a useful way. So that helps us to metabolize pain. So yes to movement, but yes, also in this book, we do a lot of breathing practices because it's the quickest, most accessible, and proven way to help people heal from the inside out. [00:23:24]
Laura Dugger: Yeah. It sounds too good to be true, but it is very true and backed up by science. Like you said, that's how the Lord created it. On page 15, you have a section of why pain must be processed. And I'll just read one of your quotes. You write, "And although your body is efficient at internalizing your pain, it isn't efficient in actually dealing with it." So Alisa, as we're learning how to metabolize pain, how does this process ultimately make us more connected to God?
Alisa Keeton: That's the beauty of The Body Revelation. I just want to say it is too good to be true, you guys. That's called faith. We believe in a faith that is too good to be true. We had a God who came to us. We didn't deserve it. He died on a cross, resurrected. It all feels like crazy too good to be true.
And the book really is pushing us towards dropping the pin at where we are. [00:24:25] That's why I start... There's six stages to metabolizing pain. I talk about we got to begin where we are, and we're just surviving. We're just getting through life. Everyone, if we aren't thriving, if we aren't in the abundant life, we have to stop and think, okay, I am living in an old state of mind. I'm thinking from my old self. And that's a survival mechanism. It's okay.
I think it's beautiful that God's like, hey, I want you to live. Surviving isn't a bad thing, but it's not the best thing. So from surviving, we can begin to move through and go, "Okay, I've survived some pretty hard things. Life is hard right now. My job is hard or my marriage is hard. My kids are stressful." But we then can begin to recognize how that stress, how our partnership with those thoughts actually are... they do brain damage to us. Really, if we continue to think in that survival mode and just try to get our needs met as fast as possible instead of, okay, I'm now going to learn how to take this energy of stress that I'm feeling, and I need to express it. [00:25:33]
And so that's in the book. We teach people how to go through an expressive phase, how to express our emotions and what we're feeling without oppressing others with our feelings or suppressing the emotions ourselves, which only hurt ourselves.
Then moving from that, it really is to humble ourselves before the Lord. We can express ourselves, but unless we take it to the Lord. People hear that in sermons like, "Hey, take your feelings. The Lord's capable. Take it to the Lord." But a lot of people go, "How do I do that? What does that look like?"
The book actually goes, we're going to now go and do this together. Put on your shoes. We go for a walk and we take those things to the Lord. We actually express, move our body, or sit and breathe and take those emotions to Him because He's more than capable of taking it. And He is the help and He is the ever-present help in times of trouble.
Then once we've taken something to God, we're His. [00:26:30] When we go to Him and say, God, you are a God, I am not, we humble ourselves. That helps us to move through the next stage of metabolizing our pain, which then puts us in right standing with God. When we give God our emotion, our hurt, our pain, our rejection and our praise and our joy, it puts us in right standing with God. And we are now operating as citizens of heaven to earth. We're children of God. We actually are citizens of the kingdom here on earth. We are the royal priesthood. We are God's chosen people.
And from that posture of being raised with Christ, then we can walk through this life with a body in good stewardship of bringing more of heaven to earth. That is kind of the process of metabolizing our pain. We have to know where we are, feel what we feel, take it to the Lord, but there's practical ways of doing that, which we learn in the book. [00:27:31] And then from there we operate from our inheritance and our identity of who we are.
And then that's the goal of the book is that people keep their body revelation. Don't lose their body revelation. Stay where God says you are seated and lifted up with Him when your body is the way that heaven gets seen here on earth.
If your body is moving and breathing and you are able to host love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, you're doing it right.
Laura Dugger: You even say that when our bodies move, our mind seems to receive God's word with less resistance. So will you elaborate on that?
Alisa Keeton: Yeah, that's the same thing. Back to the brain... It's so cool. Our brains are like... they're not our minds. Our minds are like what we're conscious of, our consciousness. I talk about it in the book that our brain is the car's engine. [00:28:30] It's just like the engine of your car. It's mechanical. It's there. If it's taken care of it, the engine's going to work.
Our body is the car, like wherever we're going to take our body, but our car, our body can't go anywhere without an engine. So the brain is the engine, but the mind is the driver's seat. And anyone who's mindful of who God is, you're going to drive that car towards the things of heaven. You're going to drive that car towards: This is what God said, this is what He's doing and here's how I am an ambassador and a messenger of this message today.
So our brains being the mechanical engine that they are, they develop in three parts from the bottom up. At the lower part of the brain, the brain stem, it's the earliest form of your body or your brain developed in your mother's womb. And you come out, a baby comes out, a healthy baby will come out with a fully formed brain stem. That part of your brain is also known as the body brain is the part of your brain that helps you to swallow, blink, do things that you don't have to think about doing. Breathing. [00:29:34] That's your body brain.
And then the next part of it, the mid area of the brain is your limbic brain, which is more of the emotional place, memory and learning, the amygdala, fight, flight, freeze. That's survival part of your brain. When you're born, a healthy brain, it's pretty active as well. That's why a baby cries because it feels — amygdala — cold or scared or hungry, and it knows, cry, send the signal.
The top part of your brain is your prefrontal medial cortex. That's the executive functioning of your brain. That's reasoning as we talked about. Funny enough, God would have it be so that we are not born with fully developed prefrontal medial cortex. We are not developed with executive functioning brains, not until we're in our mid-20s do we have a fully formed engine for our car? And that's why the formative years are so well-formative in the sense of how the brain will develop.
But when we move our body, when you go for a walk, or when you just sit and breathe with intention, you are engaging the body part of the brain, the lower area of the brain, the brain stem, and the limbic brain. [00:30:46] What I like to call it is like kind of putting a stick in the elephant's trunk.
So as you engage that part of the brain, you know, elephant trunks wander and they keep from keeping that part of the trunk wandering, the circus people would put sticks in the elephant's trunks. When we move our body, we're kind of occupying and in a productive way, the body, the brain, the emotions. We're occupying them in a really healthy way, productive way. So then the prefrontal medial cortex is open for business. What do you want to talk about? What do you want to reason about? What do you want to think about? What do you want to dream about? What do you want to have a vision for?
And that's why when we move our bodies, it is neuroplastic. You can actually restructure your brain to help move it towards a more active prefrontal medial cortex and a less active amygdala. And all of that happens because we've engaged all areas of the brain. [00:31:46] If you want to.
Now a lot of people just go to the gym and just move their body and they stay very emotional about trying to lose weight and getting things done, missing the higher opportunity to think more clearly, to get in line with who God says they are and to even pray and dream and become more of a whole person in that movement time.
So I don't have any science on that, but there is science behind bilateral movement when you go for a walk, that when you are stimulating both sides of the brain, it's much like EMDR, which is a therapeutic treatment for people who have lived through trauma. It can help them calm and access that traumatic moment without a panic mode. And I believe that can happen when we walk or move our body in a rhythmic way. We can access higher thought and kind of properly file away any stress or worry. [00:32:45]
Laura Dugger: I just view this conversation as such an invitation to move. Because you just mentioned you don't want to miss out. And I feel like we do miss out on what the Lord has to offer when he talks about loving with mind, body, soul, spirit, our strength. All of this I'm seeing is interconnected.
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You so eloquently weave together science and faith and you've talked about neuroplasticity, but you also mentioned in the book the first law of thermodynamics. Do you want to share some of the conclusions, what that is?
Alisa Keeton: Yes, I love that. There's so many things in this book that I love. I think I wrote the book just to get to some of these really fun things to think about and to think, God, if that's how God made the world and I'm made in His image, there might be something here to how I live and move and have my being.
So first law of thermodynamics. So this is actually in stage one of the book I talk about in the surviving stage. You know, we're all born broken, born into sin, born little sinners and trying to get through, get what we need in life. And that's okay. We're created with needs. [00:34:46] Needs aren't to be shamed. Needs need to be met. Hunger, thirst, clothing, warmth, love. God's left us with those vulnerabilities for needs.
But in our needs of getting our needs met, we will desire things, anything to try and get that need met. I can't remember who said that that's the definition of sin. Definition of sin is getting a legitimate need met illegitimately, in illegitimate ways.
And so I talk about this desire that we all have. We all have desire for love. We all have desire for belonging. We all have desire to be purpose and matter. Those desires are energy. It really is. When you desire something, you really... that's an emotion. I want that. I have a fire in my belly for that. And that emotion is energy in motion.
We all are a bunch of energetic creatures wanting things. And what we want... really we're made for God, but that energy, God has created it so that energy we have that gets me through the day, that makes me want to take another breath, that makes me go for the walk. [00:35:57] I have to take energy in in the form of food and out goes energy. So that's the metabolism. That's actually what a metabolic process is. Energy in, energy out.
But thermal thermodynamics says it's the law. That energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed into something else or transferred on to someone else. God created energy. In the beginning, God said, let there be light. I believe that by the way, when he said, let there be light, I believe it wasn't like light. As in when we think of a light, like turning on a light switch. It was this Zzzz, this hum, this energy. Light. It really is a force of electricity. Light. Because everything God created is energy. This table is energy. Your computer's energy. Your body is energy.
And energy is more empty space than matter. If there's more of you, Laura, that is energy, that's empty space. [00:37:00] There's less of you that is your skin and your bones and your blood, which is true. Because go down to any cemetery, you're going to see a lot of no energy, the energy left. The soul is energy. The desire is energy. And energy cannot be created or destroyed because God created it. And you can't destroy it because whatever God creates only God destroys.
So energy now is this force of "I'm either going to transform it into something else that is useful or destructive, or I transfer it onto someone else in a useful or productive way." And that is this... once we kind of pull back and be like, Oh, I'm just desiring things and my energy inside of me is either getting used for good or for evil. I can't create it. I can't destroy it. I can only change it into something. What do I want to change it into? Or I want to pass it on to someone else. Am I going to pass on love or am I going to pass on fear? Am I going to change it or let it just change me in a positive or negative way? [00:38:13]
So I think energy to me is just a fun way to kind of demystify. I know people might be like, Ooh, this is new agey. No, this is old age. This is how God created the world. And if until we start to contend with how energy is who we are, we're an energetic person and our beings and what we do with our energy matters, and we can partner with God to change it and transfer it and change the world, that's really such a powerful invitation.
Laura Dugger: And just to build on that, I'm going to tie in two more of your quotes. One, the first is from page 38 where you write, "In essence, emotions are energy in motion, making their way through our bodies and waiting to be harnessed by our muscles so our bodies can release them into the world." And I love how that connects to what you say on page eight, one of my favorite quotes in the book: "Our bodies are how love makes its way into the world."
Alisa Keeton: Yeah. I just want people to see it. Really your body is not vanity. It's not for vanity. [00:39:14] The world and Satan and our flesh will constantly try to pull us into that current. But our body is about ability. Jesus came and put on flesh, not to flex and have six-pack abs. He came to show us a kingdom and an ability behind that kingdom. And then we've been given that same ability to raise the dead, cleanse the leper, heal the sick, like change the world so it looks more like heaven on earth.
Laura Dugger: Amen. Well, you also say that our bodies and brains are for us. But how would you encourage someone if they're listening and they actually feel the opposite right now?
Alisa Keeton: Yeah. If you're feeling that, first of all, compassion. I feel like God... He draws near the brokenhearted. He draws near those who feel like they don't have it. I love the Message version says in Matthew 5, "You're blessed when you're at your end of your rope." You're blessed. The blessed are the poor in spirit. [00:40:18] So it's a beginning place.
I just want to encourage someone to say you're in a beginning place. Here's what you don't need to do. You don't need to open up the app and download another program and muscle up with more willpower. And maybe if I read more scripture and I really buckle down. That's exhausting. He knows how tired you feel. And I think God invites us to come and take His yoke upon us. Because there is a yoke. There is a yoke. I always like to think that there is work in this world. There is good things that God has for you to do. And it does take energy and time and energy. But He's worth it choosing what He wants for your life is best.
But when you come to Him, He receives you with kindness and compassion. In Romans, it says that it's His kindness that leads us to repentance. And repentance means a new way of life, a new direction to go, a new purpose for why you go that way. [00:41:18] So come to Him in kindness.
I mean, the book will help you with that, that learning to just feel what you feel, but take to Him to learn what you need to know. And then in that it's a gentle walk out of it. It is not a fast, quick fix. It's not going to be flashy. I also want to encourage someone who feels frustrated with their body. First of all, to just say, if your body never changed one inch on what you saw in the mirror, but you could feel more free in it, more in love with God and yourself and others, would that be enough? Because I think the world constantly will tell you it's not enough. You have to change it. It needs to be smaller. It needs to be taller. You need to be blonder. You need to be tanner. You need to be whatever. Like it is a torment game that we have to get out of.
Shift our attention towards this body hosts heaven. This is how love gets seen. I cannot give away what I don't have. So God, I need you to come and love me here in this body, because it's where He chose to dwell. [00:42:23] And just stay in that place with Him. The goal of The Body Revelation is that you would have this body revelation of what your body is for and who it belongs to and how to hold on to that house key of your body home so that heaven stays in you.
It might not ever change on what you see, but what you contain and hold on the inside absolutely can change. You asked me that question, what are some of the stories I've seen and things I get to be a part of? It's that. I get to see over and over how people begin to fall in love with God in a deep and really experienced way that they can taste and see that God is good and then they begin to make choices, thoughts, and feelings come from this goodness of God in a body that's being called good. It's a fantastic, wonderful, gentle way to go. So that's what I would encourage you is be kind and be gentle and go to the Lord and begin these tiny little steps of walking into new life. [00:43:23]
Laura Dugger: We are all about practical application when we hear something to put it into practice because that is a lot of times where the Lord meets us with transformation. You exhort one of the first steps. Rather than turning to run and numb, if we find ourselves in a state of stress, you invite us to rather walk and talk. I think you mentioned today, breathe too.
Alisa Keeton: Yes. He's the best. He's the best. There's no better place to spend your time than with Him. And you receive all that you need, all that energy of heaven that you need to then go out and give it away. It's fun. It's a fun way to live.
Laura Dugger: Alisa, there's one of your stories that really stands out as well. So will you share your personal story to illustrate the power of hope?
Alisa Keeton: Oh, the power of hope. Yes. When my firstborn was born, my son, Jack, I had all the dreams of what having a baby would be like and having your firstborn. [00:44:26] And I did not have that experience. I had a son who cried nonstop from three weeks old until three months old. He had colic. He had colic nonstop round the clock. Not just the bewitching hours colic, but really ongoing.
I had tons of pride around that. I felt like I was failing, like my child could not stop crying. I didn't want other people to have to care about my baby that was crying. So I stayed locked up in my house, trying to just help this child sleep, which he wouldn't. I was beginning to lose myself. Lack of sleep will do crazy things to people. And then you got hormones resetting. It was a messy, messy time.
And I was mad at God. I remember thinking, what is this? I thought I was going to have this amazing baby experience, and it was terrible. And I was embarrassed and ashamed of it.
Then one day there was a knock at the door, and what they call the mommy brigade showed up, some women from church, women that I didn't even really know. [00:45:28] I mean, I had just started going to church at this point. I was just really newly walking with the Lord again. They had been checking on me by phone, but I was not coming. I was not responding to a lot of stuff. And they showed up, and it was just a brigade of them, walked in, and my friend Melinda just kind of pinned my arms down and said, "We are here to help. You are going to go lay down now, and we're going to take care of everything." Wow, I could still actually cry right now, Laura, thinking of that. Because I'm such a doer. I'll keep going. Again, those people that were just like, I've got to just make it happen. I've got to survive.
She pinned my arms down and walked me back to the bedroom and laid me down, and I resisted until I didn't. And while I slept, they did my laundry and cared for Jack. I mean, he would be fine if he was held all the time. You had to hold him all the time. It was a moment of hope. It was this that "you're not alone, and this moment will pass. We're going to get through it." [00:46:29] Kind of back to when I was on the aerobic room floor, that everything is going to be all right. That hope moment gave me enough to say, "Keep going. This is not going to last forever."
There's a study that was done by some scientists on hope. And what they did is they took rats. Rats are actually pretty good. They're pretty good at swimming. But they put rats in water, and the rats in water would drown after about five minutes or so. After five minutes, they would start to drown because they were in this contained environment. It's not something that they had been in before, and they didn't know what to do. Even though they inherently are pretty good swimmers, they would drown after about five minutes.
What they did next is they thought, you know, I wonder... because they knew rats were good swimmers, that they then took another set of rats, put them in this contained environment of water, and right about the time before they were going to die, right around they could see they were starting to lose their ability to keep their heads above water, they would swoop in and lift the rat up, take it out of the water, give it a moment to reprieve, give it a moment to be okay, and then would put it back in the water. [00:47:49] And those rats that went back in the water would swim for hours. I believe it was up to 16 hours. They would keep swimming.
Why is that? Because they were touched by hope. And that touch of hope and then to be put back into that environment, they actually found something inside of them that was, like, stronger, like, okay, we can keep going, we can keep going, hope is coming, hope is coming, hope is coming. So their ability, their inherent ability to swim connected with this hope, and they could go longer than they thought they could initially.
I think it's just a beautiful picture of how God created us. He gives us these moments to take hope, because in taking hope that we find in Him, we find an inherent ability to go further than we thought we could.
Laura Dugger: Thank you for sharing that. And yes, you've already given the reason for our hope in Jesus Christ and wherever we're at, that just turning to Him and starting this process, sharing where we're at openly with Him, He is our hope and He can get us through. [00:48:53] Alisa, you have so much more to offer. So where can we all go after this chat to learn more from you?
Alisa Keeton: I love that. Thank you. You can go to Revelation Wellness, revelationwellness.org. We have all kinds of free things to get you going, get starting to move your body, or to sit and get some of these mental and physical health practices for your wholehearted faith. So revelationwellness.org.
I highly encourage the book. I love writing things that are systematic, things that can help people drop the pin where they are and then move through something, not feel like it's a smattering of this, that, and other things. It actually is there to help you progress and process through. I really hope people enjoy it. And that'd be a great place to start as well.
Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will put links to that in the show notes for today's episode. You may already be aware we are called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce? [00:50:01]
Alisa Keeton: My savvy sauce is intimacy with Jesus Christ. I love Him. I went from knowing about Him and His word to really all the things that I've learned to practice where I have an intimate relationship with Him. So intimacy with Jesus Christ is my secret sauce. He knows me. I know him. We're on a first-name basis. He is my friend. He is as real as my breath, my hands right here. That is my secret sauce.
Laura Dugger: Alisa, you are clearly on fire for the Lord and your enthusiasm spurs me not only to move, but to also glorify Him. It's been incredible through reading your book and following Revelation Wellness and hearing you today, just these gifts that He's given you specifically, you're clearly stewarding those well to help set the captives free in unique ways. So thank you for your faithful ministry and thank you for being my guest today.
Alisa Keeton: Thank you, Laura. It was a blast. I enjoyed every moment. [00:51:08]
Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.
This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.
This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:52:08] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.
We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:53:07]
At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.
Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:54:10] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce
Practical chats for intentional living
A faith-based podcast and resources to help you grow closer to Jesus and others. Expect encouragement, surprises, and hope here. Each episode offers lively interviews with fascinating guests such as therapists, authors, non-profit founders, and business leaders.
They share their best practices and savvy tips we can replicate to make our daily life and relationships more enjoyable!
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