Trina Boice: Easy Tips for Hard Times
Do you need tips to help manage stress, anxiety or depression? Listen as Trina shares ideas to help physically, emotionally and in everyday situations.
Tamara K. Anderson interview Dr. Trina Boice on coping techniques to help with stress, anxiety, and depression. This is especially needed during this time of the Coronavirus or COVID-19. We specifically talk about:
The importance of taking care of your physical body
Changing your surroundings
How the friends you keep can impact you
Meditation, mindfulness and many more tips
For Trina’s FREE Guide to coping techniques mentioned in today’s podcast go here: http://www.findingjoytoday.net/
To take her course, Managing Stress, Anxiety and Depression 90% off the listed price go here: https://lifelonglearningeducation.com/p/stress-reduction-strategies
And use this code: Corona2020
You can find Trina on her social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. You can also find her on the following websites:
Here is the transcription for this week’s episode:
Tamara Anderson 0:02
Today I’m going to give you some life hacks for stress, anxiety and depression with a good friend of mine Dr. Trina Boyce. We’re going to talk about physical things you can do, emotional things you can do, and who doesn’t need life hacks for these important things? We need all the help we can get to make it through this crazy Coronavirus year so stay tuned.
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God’s help. I’m your host, Tamara K Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life’s hardest moments.
Welcome my friends! Here we are, beginning of November of 2020, and this has just been a crazy year. I am constantly amazed by all of the challenges so many people are facing. Some of the challenges due to COVID-19 have been very, very weighty. There’s been a lot of people who are struggling because of all the change. There’s been an increased amount of stress, anxiety, depression, and even suicide rates. So this is a topic that is a really challenging one to juggle and handle and deal with. In order to do so, I am so pleased to bring back my guest from last week, Dr. Trina Boyce.
For those of you who were unable to catch my interview with Trina last week, I’m going to do a brief introduction and then we’re going to talk about this topic that is so important and so needed right now. Trina does is such a positive voice and she even has some free giveaways. Dr. Trina Boyce is the number one best-selling author of 31 books and she was named the California Young Mother of the Year, which really amuses her four sons. She teaches online, she has created online courses and she’s got a free offer for you guys later on in today’s podcast. She’s a movie critic on moviereviewmom.com. She has a daily podcast on Alexa called Daily Inspirational Quote with Trina. And last week, we were blessed to have her talking to us about parenting and the miscarriages that she experienced and the lessons she learned from those. So if you didn’t catch last week’s episode, go back and take a listen to get more of the background on Dr. Trina Boyce and her story.
Let’s transition a little bit into this topic of anxiety and depression and stress because there’s a lot of that in the world today. There’s a lot of stress and anxiety and even more depression since COVID-19 hit. This is a topic that I think it’s good to learn about and be aware of, and to be able to learn coping strategies because we are not immune to it. We may have situational depression, like when you had your miscarriage of your baby. It was because of hormones. It was just a temporary thing but there are circumstances in life like if you have a loved one passed away where it can dramatically change and affect you and you may be grieving for a while. So what advice or tips would you give to someone who is struggling with a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety or even depression?
Trina 4:19
You’re absolutely right. I think in a normal world, everybody has moments of depression, anxiety and stress. That’s just life. You mentioned I teach online for university. I was grading an assignment this morning in fact, and one of my students asked me a question in his assignment. He said, “What am I supposed to do? Because I think everything is going my way and then it doesn’t anymore.” And I wrote back and I said, “You know what? That’s life.”
Part of it, as I mentioned earlier, is expectations. If you think life is meant to be perfect and rosy all the time, no wonder you’re going to be disappointed and depressed. That’s not the plan. Now, personally, I believe that one of the reasons why we’re here on earth is to learn and grow. As you mentioned before, how do we possibly learn and grow if everything is the same, everything is stable, everything is happy, everything is good and easy? Well, we don’t, we stagnate, actually.
You have to constantly be working on a new goal or a new challenge in order to, as you said, learn more about yourself and what you are capable of even doing. So part of it is just recognizing that there will be challenges. Now, who could have foreseen this pandemic? Well, I guess if you look at history, you could say, well, we were due. The last one was 100 years ago. But nobody had that on their radar for 2020. We all started the year thinking this is gonna be the best year ever, we all had our goals, I went out and bought this awesome planner, which it turned out to not be very helpful this year. I crossed out all of the things that I had planned on doing this year. But knowing that life is going to have twists and turns, that’s super helpful, just to know.
I mentioned to you earlier, before we started recording, that I grew up with a dad who was very staunch, and very capable, emotionally, physically top of his game, and of course, demanded and expected that of all of his kids. Of course, we’ve been a huge disappointment to him. I’m only partially kidding. But I grew up with the attitude of, “What’s wrong with these people if they have to go to a shrink?” You know, my dad would say, “Well, you don’t have to go to a shrink, suck it up.” He was definitely of the mentality of get some grit, get some resilience, you know, just suck it up.
And so I was like, Yeah, okay, yeah, what’s wrong with all these people that can’t handle X, Y, or Z. I realized back when I was in high school, for the first time, I noticed once a month, I wasn’t thinking logically. And I was like, I wonder if those are related? And yes, they are. Having babies and hormones and all that kind of stuff. I hope this doesn’t sound sexist, but women are twice as likely to have depression as men. So that was kind of like a lightbulb moment for me when I realized, huh, my body has to do with my emotions, my brain activity and the food that I’m consuming, and the exercise I’m getting or not getting.
In fact, I’ve talked with a lot of therapists, and they say the very first thing that they do before they sit down and listen to their client’s stories is to ask them to get a physical exam. Let’s make sure your body is working correctly, let’s address the immediate needs of your body. Are you eating good, healthy food? That will help you to feel more clear minded. When I eat junk food and garbage and I have a sweet tooth, I start to have cloudy thoughts and I’m not working at my most alert ability.
I recognize that when I don’t get enough sleep, I’m cranky and irritable, I don’t think straight. So first, you need to address those physical conditions of your own body. Then look at the physical conditions of where you are. If you don’t have windows open, and you’re not getting that vitamin D from the sunshine, that could be affecting your mood. If you’re in a dirty house, that can affect it. My husband and I are exactly the same whenever there’s junk everywhere. We both kind of get cranky with each other and then when it’s happened enough that we’re like, okay, clearly we need to straighten up this house, you know, because it really affects our mood and our attitude. So look at your physical environment of your body, then look out at your outside environment, and having a candle or aromatherapy going.
Smells can really change your mood as well. I believe in the power of essential oils and so that can affect your environment as well.
And then of course, extending further, your social environment. The people that you surround yourself with. Are they uplifting and inspiring when you get together? Do you just both go down this complaining spiral and leave each other feeling like, well, I got that off my chest, but you don’t feel any better? So surround yourself with people that pull you up. I have a girlfriend who is always trying new things and involved in this and that and the other and exposing me to new things that I didn’t even know were out there. And I love her for that.
We have different relationships with different friends, I have other friends where, I call it vomit, all over them emotionally. They are the type of friend where they know how to handle that. I end up feeling revived or rejuvenated because of what they’re able to do, but I try intentionally not to dislike all over.
Tamara Anderson 11:00
No, these are great tips. Because we do need to first take care of our physical needs. I’d never thought about looking at the environment around you. But you’re right. If you clean even something up, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, and it almost pulls you forward. It’s like starting a ball rolling. It makes such a huge difference. I love what you say about surrounding yourself with people that can be a positive influence in your life and that different people fill different roles. Because there are times we’re going to need somebody to just listen to our sob story. There’s times we’re going to need some cheering up. So it’s good to have a variety of friends who you can turn to when you’re struggling.
Trina 11:47
There are things that you can do that will literally change your energetic vibration. Now, this might sound hippie dippie, woo, woo. But thoughts, and energy absolutely work together. In fact, it was the same girlfriend who’s always introducing me to new ideas and fun activities and things, she had me read this book, and it was really eye opening to me. It introduced to me the idea of energy. It’s not like I couldn’t have figured this out by myself. But I had never really thought about it in these terms.
When you’re feeling sad and depressed, almost nothing will pull you up because you’re pretty committed to staying down at the bottom of the barrel, right? Those literally are the words that describe the lowest despair where there is no hope. I love that your podcast focuses on hope. Hope is such a powerful thing. It is my all-time favorite theme in literature and movies. Hope is a really powerful thing. I do want to share with your audience some coping techniques. In fact, I have a free gift for your audience.
I’m going to rattle off some various coping techniques that are helpful. You won’t remember them all, even if you try to write them all down. You can just go to this website, findingjoytoday.net. You just click on the box, give me your email address, and I will shoot that to you in an email. You’ll have the whole document of all of these coping techniques.
Before I forget, I also have a second gift. Right before the pandemic, I created online courses. I had noticed a lot of people talking about depression and anxiety in my extended family and I knew that there was a need. So I created this course. It’s an online course, offered at lifelonglearningeducation.com. But as soon as the Coronavirus hit, and I saw depression and anxiety levels skyrocket, I knocked the price of this course down.
So you can save 90% off my course, and you use the code, Corona2020. I think with the discount the whole course is like $10. That course will also give you tons of coping techniques and ideas. Not all of them will work for everyone. But some of them will and that’s all it takes is to just get a few that work.
As I was talking earlier about this vibration, the lowest levels are despair and anxiety and stress and hopelessness. There are little things you can do. Picture a ladder. As you’re climbing up this ladder, trying to get out of the pit of despair, literally, each little activity or exercise or thing that you do can bring you up one rung on that ladder, until you get to that top, which literally is a different vibration. The energy is actually different, it vibrates much higher. The highest level is gratitude. There’s simple exercises like keeping a gratitude journal, or focusing on the good things that exist in your life. Some of the little things that I’m going to tell you here in just a second will give you some ideas of those things that you could do.
But back to my dad, and how I grew up. My sisters and my brother and I, we all have that same mentality, like just suck it up already. Until somebody in my extended family married into a family that actually had clinical depression in their family, like it’s a genetic component. My twin sister is a nurse practitioner. And the two of us kind of had the same epiphany, like, wow, there’s an actual genetic component to depression. There are people that really need medicinal support, it’s not a matter of just suck it up. It’s a matter of, I need some physical, chemical help, so that I can make better choices or have the ability to even try some of these coping techniques. Recognize that now.
If anybody needs therapy, there is no shame whatsoever, you just need additional support. There’s nothing wrong with that. I know people that go in for marriage counseling, I have friends that say, “Yeah, we just went in for a quick tune up.” Every marriage struggles at times, and everybody needs a tune up, whether it’s individually or in relationships. I think that’s a really healthy way to look at it to just say, “Hey, I need a little tune up, or I need a little extra help.”
So anyway, you can kind of categorize coping styles into three categories. One is instrumental coping, which is more problem focused methods. Then there’s emotional coping, which focuses more on, obviously, your emotions, your attitudes, your mentality. And then the third one is avoidance. And so I’ll share just a few of what those mean.
We actually talked already about some instrumental coping like physical health, spotting patterns, looking for habits, like when I realized that once a month, my attitude was different. There’s a physical component that’s affecting my ability to think correctly, at least for me. So look for patterns and triggers. Make an “If, then” list. Like for me, like I told you, I have a terrible sweet tooth. I loved working at Le Cordon Bleu teaching classes, I ate some amazing food. I had to write a little “If, then” list. If I am feeling snack-ish and I want sugar, then I will drink herbal tea instead. Try to come up with reasonable alternatives. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t, where I just have to have that cheeseburger or bagels, or whatever. And that is, okay, we’re humans.
We talked, obviously, a little bit about faith. Another instrumental coping technique is to apply your values. If you are religious, understand that there are lessons to be learned. That’s one thing that I shared with my student. Instead of looking at this new challenge in your life that you didn’t welcome, look at it as an opportunity to learn and grow. Ask yourself, “What should I be learning from this?” I felt like I had learned so much after my first miscarriage. I was kind of surprised when I had a second and a third. I was like, wait a minute. I thought I learned all the important ones. Why am I doing this again? Well, sure enough, there were still yet more lessons that I needed to learn. Not that’s not necessarily why I had miscarriages. But I certainly took the opportunity to dig deeper and find out. What is there yet for me to learn from having this experience?
Be really clear about what you want. That has to do with standing up for yourself by explaining your expectations, and even your boundaries. So for example, my husband and I really love to travel. So this whole pandemic has really frustrated us, because all these fun trips planned, and we’ve had to cancel them all. But you know, whatever. So whenever we do leave on a trip, usually when we’re in the car, either headed out, or in the car headed to the airport, depending on how far we’re traveling, we’ll say to each other, “Okay, what are your expectations for this trip? What would you like to have happen on this trip?”
So for example, if I’m like, “Well, I’ve got to see every touristy attraction that I possibly can in this city.” And my husband’s like, “Well, I just wanted to take a nap and read,” then we’re like, Okay, now we know, we need to compromise. It’s really helpful to actually verbalize that. Because sometimes, we don’t know. I’ll be really upset and I’ll think, why am I so upset? And then I realize, Oh, it’s because I didn’t get what I wanted. I’m throwing a tantrum. While I didn’t even know I wanted that thing until I didn’t get it. You know what I mean?
Tamara Anderson 21:53
No, and that’s true. I remember attending a class a number of years ago, it was when I was newly married. The lady giving the class, gave it all on expectations. She said, “Often, when we’re upset, it’s because we didn’t get what we expected. That picture in our head of how we thought things would play out didn’t happen. But often we forget to verbalize that. We forget to tell people, this is what I’d like to see happen.” I know that’s something that I’ve had to learn, especially on weekends. I always I start the day off asking my husband, “What are your expectations for today? What do you see happening for today?” Because often he’s got a list in his brain. And I’m like, okay, those are your expectations. Here’s what I need to get done. As we balance that out and add to the mix all the needs of the children that day, sometimes we’re like, okay, obviously, we’re not going to get everything done today. But what can we do? So it’s a balance. And that’s life right now.
Trina 23:00
Yeah, absolutely. Plan ahead and visualize any potential obstacles, like, okay, I’m going to go to this party, there are going to be delicious, fattening foods, how am I going to handle that? Or I know so and so is going to be at that party, and I can’t stand listening to that person drone on and on and on. How am I going to politely excuse myself from having a conversation? That was a terrible example. But to actually anticipate possible roadblocks along your journey, and ahead of time, and maybe even role-play.
Another thing is to identify your power hours. In other words, what are the hours of the day where you really are the most effective? Well, that’s when you get your tough stuff done. Whether it’s working or having a challenging conversation with somebody or whatever. Schedule meetings during those power hours. I love that in our culture today, people are using the word “intentional.” That never really was in the typical American vocabulary. Now you hear people saying, “I’m doing this with intention,” or I’m gonna wake up and, with intention, create my day. I love that people are more aware of the power that they have to create the day that they want.
Here’s a silly story. I was in Costco. This is many years ago, but I was in Costco and I was in a hurry and had to get whatever I had to get. I had my little cart and I’m racing through the aisles. I noticed everybody was like, really cranky. Everybody would look at me and grimace or growl and I was like, what is up with everybody? So I’m racing through this door, getting all this stuff done, finally, get in my car, start to back out and I look in my rearview mirror, and I realized all those people were reacting to me. I was the one that was cranky and frustrated and angry, and had that on my face. I mean, I literally saw that on my face when I got in the mirror. I was like, oh, oops.
So we can create, to some extent, what we experience in the world by simply creating a positive, happy environment. You mentioned a podcast that I have. I was invited to create this podcast called Daily Inspirational Quotes. I was thrilled to, first of all, extended that invitation from this company. Every day, I get to share these inspiring thoughts, and have a little Facebook group called the same thing. People will say, “Oh, you just made my day.” That little Facebook group is filled with people who are in such happy, good moods, because they’re there with the intention of inspiring each other. I love that.
Another thing here, we’re still on that very first strategy. I know we’re running out of time. Another tip is to simply do one thing at a time. I’m all about multitasking. I feel like I’m getting all this stuff done. But honestly, they have studied brain waves. They can scientifically now prove that a human being can really only focus on one thing for 90 seconds. Then you could take a five second break, and then do something else. But I feel like I’m doing all this stuff at the same time. But I realize I’m not giving any one of those things 100% of my effort, right? We get depressed when we expect too much of ourselves. Why can’t I do 50 things at the same time? So stop trying. Don’t expect to do so many things. My husband and I laugh and just say, once we started having kids, we really had to lower our standards and our expectations, because everything takes way longer than you ever think it would.
Tamara Anderson 27:08
Oh, yeah. I remember after we had our first baby, the goal that I set was seriously to get a shower. That was it, besides taking care of the baby. I just wanted to shower. That was seriously my first goal. And I thought, Oh, my gosh, we used to get all this done. I was working, and now I can barely get a shower. Sometimes life throws you curveballs or life circumstances change. You have to learn to pivot and say, like you say, whatever. Okay, this is how it is now.
Trina 27:42
Right. I don’t ever want to trivialize any challenge that anybody’s going through, because there have been many times in my life where my life is nowhere near where I thought it was going to be. There were outside forces affecting the quality of my life. When those occasions happen, that’s when you have to kind of embrace that whatever. No, it’s not permanent. Eventually, it will. I’m being super vague, because you could probably think of a million circumstances that would be permanent, like, being permanently paralyzed. Well, okay, maybe that one is permanent. But you never know. I mean, there’s still always hope. I don’t know, I guess I’m always thinking of hope.
Tamara Anderson 28:43
Let’s take a quick break. But when we get back let’s build on what you’ve already taught us about some coping strategies for physical and talk about some of these emotional strategies that we can add to our resources that we can draw from when we are struggling and need help.
How many of you out there feel like your life is chaotic, crazy, and completely awful compared to the norm? What if I were to tell you that you are normal for you? I am so excited to announce that my book, “Normal for Me” by Tamara Anderson is now available for purchase on Amazon. This book took me 10 years to write, and I share 20 years’ worth of lessons learned in my life detours, including being in a car accident and having two of my children diagnosed on the autism spectrum. In this book, I share the secrets of how I made it from despair, to peace with God’s help. I also include a bonus Diagnosis Survival Guide at the very end of my “Normal for Me.” The Diagnosis Survival Guide includes 12 tips to survive and thrive in tough times. Wouldn’t you like to know what those are? So what are you waiting for? Grab your copy of “Normal for Me” today on Amazon.
And we’re back. I’ve been talking with Dr. Trina Boyce about techniques that we can use when we are struggling with stress, anxiety or depression. We’ve kind of talked about physical ideas that we can use. Now we’re transitioning into emotional tips and strategies.
Trina 30:32
So another thing that I really like that’s happening in our culture is that everybody is now considering meditation a viable technique. Like it used to just be for hippies, and be weird. But now everybody realizes there is some good that can be had by meditation. Of course, prayer is a form of meditation.
Mindfulness is now another part of our common vernacular, people are more mindful. I love that breathing and doing breathing exercises is also something that the average person knows how to do. That literally lowers your heart rate, it’s super effective. It’s something as simple as taking five minutes during a stressful moment or a time of the day where you’re normally stressed out or don’t have energy or whatever, or somebody is going to come home and they’re going to bring bad Voodoo energy. Watch some YouTube videos, get some laughter going, listen to podcasts like yours, or my little inspirational podcast is so short, you could make that out in three minutes or less. That’s all it is. It’s three minutes every day. Then if you have an Echo device, if I say, “Alexa, motivate me,” she’ll tell you thoughts or quotes or a whole story or whatever. So again, surround yourself with things that provide moments of joy or laughter.
Okay, so that’s kind of emotional stuff, because we had talked a lot about emotion stuff earlier. And then this last category is avoidance coping. So one technique is to challenge your assumptions. That means try to reframe the way that you see daily events, so that you’ll feel more hopeful about them. Why do these things happen? What is it you can learn from them? Reframe that, seek healthy alternatives. Keep practicing these various techniques, consider counseling or medication if you need additional support. Limiting your screen time is huge too.
Tamara Anderson 33:15
Yes.
Trina 33:17
I just started watching this show on Netflix, everybody’s kind of talking about it right now. It’s called “The Social Dilemma.” It’s bringing out the scientific information that we already knew that when we spend any amount of time on social media, we will be comparing ourselves in a hot minute to how we are inferior, how our lives are less than everybody else’s. That makes you depressed and discouraged. The reality is everybody is doing their hair and makeup and they’re shining the spotlight on the happy, good, positive things in their life. They’re not shining the spotlight on when they’re curled into a fetal position on their bed, eating potato chips. You have to remember. Put that in a reframe. What you’re seeing as, “Hooray, we’re happy for you” is not the full story.
Another technique is to stop catastrophizing. That means thinking of worst-case scenarios. I grew up with a mother who was a worrier. I remember, even as a young girl, thinking, hmm, you know that worrying isn’t really solving the problem. It’s not preventing the problem. In fact, there might not even be a problem. My mother would worry about all these worst-case scenarios that never happened. I realized they were just simply stealing moments of joy away from her in her day-to-day life. I always felt like you know what, if it happens, we’re going to deal with it and if it doesn’t happen, great. Or vice versa. Just whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. Now, I’m not saying don’t be prepared. But don’t spend all your time stealing your joy by focusing on all the horrible things that could happen.
Tamara Anderson 35:18
Yeah. My mom says, “Why worry when you can pray?” I’ve always loved that little saying, because often we are truly worried about something and just remembering that we have the capability of taking that problem, that challenge that we’re worried about, and just giving it to God.
Trina 35:38
Exactly. I’ll just end on this one, to fill your heart and soul and mind with loving thoughts from yourself. We are our worst enemy. We do something maybe silly or dumb, or even make a mistake. If anybody is like me listening out there, I instantly feel like I’m the worst person in the world. I’m the ugliest person, and I can’t do anything.
Tamara Anderson 36:05
Yeah, totally
Trina 36:05
You go into a pity party. I say horrible things to myself that I would never say to any other human being. Why would I say that to myself? Words have power. As an author, I absolutely believe that. Whether it’s spoken or written, they absolutely have power to create. So you know, sometimes people make fun of people that repeat these positive affirmations like “I’m beautiful,” “I’m amazing,” etc. yet you don’t believe it, because you think you’re not pretty or amazing. But if you do something dumb, then just say, you know what, that was totally stupid. It’s a good thing I’m not a stupid person. I’m going to learn from that and never do it again. Moving on. Instead of going into a big pity party. For what it’s worth, there are moments when we’re just gonna have a pity party. That’s okay, too. You can have a party, but it can only last for 30 minutes. And then move on.
Tamara Anderson 37:12
Yeah. I love that. That’s so fun. Oh, my goodness, these tips are so incredibly helpful. I know that maybe you listeners are listening to these, and you’re going, Oh, my gosh, I can’t do all of them. I think the point that Trina and I would love you to understand is pick one. Maybe you’re going to focus first on just thinking positive thoughts about yourself, and not saying anything to yourself that you would never say to anybody else. Think, “I am capable, I can do this one little thing today.” Maybe just start the ball rolling there and tell yourself that you’re going to say positive things to yourself today. Start with that. So you don’t have to start and do 20 things all at once. The beauty of changing life is its change starts with a single step. So if you’re feeling discouraged, and don’t know what to do, and don’t know where to turn, and there’s one of these things that you feel like, Oh, I should try that. Try it. Don’t feel like you’re you’re all alone. There are others out there to help you with this.
If you are feeling suicidal, and need to talk to somebody today, right away, you can call 1-800-273-8255. That’s 1-800-273-8255. They can help you. They can talk you through that because I promise you, whatever you’re facing, you can get help. You don’t have to go through it alone. There are people out there that are so happy and willing to help you. Make sure that tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and maybe next month are better than what you’re dealing with right now.
Before we close, I wanted to share a powerful verse of scripture that I’ve been thinking about today. It is found in Romans chapter eight. So when you’re feeling discouraged, this is a powerful chapter in the Bible to turn to. If you want to turn to verse 26, it says, “Likewise, the spirit also help with our infirmities.” So when we are feeling overwhelmed, discouraged, downtrodden, or someone that we love is, read this verse: “Likewise the spirit also help with our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we are.” So sometimes we don’t even know what to pray for. But here’s the latter part of the verse, “But the Spirit itself make us intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
Isn’t that beautiful? God knows how we are feeling inside and He is making intercession for us? He is pleading, Jesus Christ is pleading before the Father, for our case. Bless Tamara, she’s really struggling today. That just brings me such hope that God is there and he’s pleading for me today.
If you’ll go down just a little bit farther into chapter two, verse 35. It says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?” So you we can add stress and depression and anxiety we can add all those to that list. And then down to verse 38. “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present more things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.” So no matter where you are in life, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how in the depths of despair you’re feeling right now, Jesus Christ loves you, and nothing you do or think or say, will ever change that. You can rely on that. That is a sure anchor, and I hope that brings you hope.
Oh my goodness, Trina, well, we have had quite the conversation today. I’m just so thankful that you’ve been willing to share these amazing tips with the my listeners today.
Now Trina, there’s going to be people who want to connect with you, after listening to all your amazing stories and experiences, what where is the best way that they can find you.
Trina 42:14
I’m kind of all over. If you Google my name, you’ll find me, Trina Boyce, on social media. I’m Trina Boyce. But if you want this little free gift, go to findingjoytoday.net. It’ll talk a little bit about that online course and send you or give you a link that you can also click on that takes you to that online course if you’d like to check that out. It also will give you a link to take you off in the other direction to find my podcast. I’m on YouTube. I’ve got four different channels, and those do have different names. One of them is my name. One is Movie Review Mom. Another one is called Empty Nest Travel Hacker. I started that one when my husband and I thought we were empty nester there for a quick minute. I haven’t had time to post a whole lot of content on there. I have another one that supports all of my online courses called Lifelong Learning Education.
Tamara Anderson 43:22
Well, thank you for sharing your lifelong education or just a smidge of it with us today and talking everything about anxiety, coping skills for anxiety, stress and depression. So this has just been phenomenal. Trina, thank you so much for sharing your stories of hope, and helping us realize that we can cope with hope as well.
Trina 43:46
Thank you so much, Tamara, you are awesome. I love all the good that you’re pouring into the world with your podcast.
Tamara Anderson 43:52
Thank you.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today’s show. I know that there are many of you out there that are going through a hard time and I hope you found things that have been useful today. As you listen to the podcast, if you would like to access the show notes from today’s podcast, visit my website. That is storiesofhopepodcast.com. That is where you’ll find favorite quotes from today’s episode and shareable memes. Those are fun because you can share them with your friends on social media. You will also find the links mentioned throughout today’s episode so you don’t have to remember what those were, and also all the tips that were shared. Sometimes tips are shared so much throughout an episode you forget and wonder what were those great things? So go to the show notes, storiesofhopepodcast.com to look up these fantastic resources. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today’s episode, perhaps that means that you should share this with them. Maybe there was a story shared or a tip that they really, really need to hear. So go ahead and share this episode with them. May God bless you, especially if you’re struggling with hope to carry on and with the strength to keep going when things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ, and he will help bear that burden. Above all else, remember God loves you.