In this interview, Dr. Chuck talks with author Kathy Carlton Willis about her book The Grin Gal’s Planner for Wellbeing.
The Importance of God-help and Self-help
Dr. Chuck: There’s an old adage, “when all you have is a hammer, all the world’s a nail.” So often, we approach our life challenges the best way we know how, and when it comes to health and, more specifically, weight-loss, we often use the hammer and nail approach. We cut out people’s stomachs, give medications, focus on lifestyle, diet, and exercise, but so often we fail to recognize the greatest resource available. We pull out the hammer, hit the nail, and wonder why the outcomes aren’t what we expected. Stay with us on Spoonful of Courage, as we hear from Kathy Carlton Willis, who reminds us of other tools in our toolbox, simple resources we often forget.
Kathy Willis: Because if we don’t take care of what’s on the inside, it won’t matter what’s going on the outside.
Dr. Chuck: We have met the enemy and the enemy is ourself.
Kathy Willis: That sabotage is a beast and we do it to ourselves, but when we let God inform our decisions, and that’s why I talk about personal stewardship too, and I think that that plays in here. We’re taught in church, you know, “be a good steward, take care of God’s resources”, but we forget we are one of God’s resources.
Dr. Chuck: So we are the temple of God, and that’s what I really like about The Grin Gal’s Planner for Wellbeing. Now this is a more practical approach, so this is more of the theory.
Kathy Willis: Right, that has the bible study and how to.
Dr. Chuck: This is more of the practice, and so what I really like about this, it’s kind of a journal, but it’s also kind of a journal in a planner; where you kind of go through on a weekly basis and you begin and just really just talk about. You know, the first month it talks about, you know, just writing down, like, you know, not only just measurements of your hips and your thighs and all that stuff, but it’s also the intangible stuff that you can’t see.
Kathy Willis: I want to track your goals, your victories. When we have a victory in our lives, we are the last person to celebrate. We are already focused on the next struggle we have, and so this planner helps you take the time to celebrate, and God adores that about us, because it really is giving him thanks, because where does every good thing come from?
Dr. Chuck: Everything comes from God and we are his workmanship, not our own workmanship, and that’s that’s the difference between God-help and self-help. So many help self-help books focus on how to tweak our responses and how to create the blueprint and the outcome in our minds, and we forget that God has that outcome. And I think that’s one of the neat things about what you’re writing about and what you’re coaching about now. I know that you do some online coaching as well. You have several different programs for people with the physical and the spiritual, and all those things. Tell us a little bit about that.
Kathy Willis: Well, I found it’s really good to do life in a group, because we have that accountability and we cheer each other on and we just show up more. We don’t show up for ourselves, but we do for a group. We do, and so while this planner is something you can do on your own, it’s also good to find a group, and so I’ve offered several of them where people can be a part of. It’ll help them either grow spiritually, it will help them with some soul care, because who doesn’t need that? And then, if they do have some physical problems, we have groups that will help with that as well.
Dr. Chuck: And they can find out at kathycarltonwillis.com, is that right, Kathy?
Kathy Willis: That’s right.
Dr. Chuck: Good, good, so you know, and that’s really important, you know, we really need each other, but we also need to have a plan. We need to have a goal and some strategies and some steps that we can take, and that’s what I think is so productive about this book. I mean, there’s so many books that just give the big theory of things, but not many books say, “okay, this is the first step you need to make”, and really what I like about the book too, is that there is a time of reflection when you go to bed at night, thinking over your day and thinking over kind of self analysis of “how did I do today?”
Kathy Willis: Right, and we need that time, because our mind is going to go there anyway. So we need to structure that time so that it’s successful and we can fall asleep in peace.
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For more Spoonful of Courage episodes, check out Dr. Chuck’s show Spoonful of Courage TV or buy the books A Spoonful of Courage for the Sick and Suffering: Transforming Your Greatest Challenges into Your Biggest Blessings and Spoonful of Courage: Equations to Find Grace in Life’s Challenges on Amazon.
