Emotional Maturity & Pruning Toxic Relationships to Protect Your Calling with Kimberly Joy

In this powerful Hope Unlocked episode, Kristin sits down with Kimberly Joy for a hope-filled conversation on emotional maturity, Kingdom leadership, and staying spiritually stable when life shakes you. You’ll learn the difference between instant breakthroughs and long-term growth, why humility and emotional stability mark true maturity, and how the Holy Spirit meets you as Counselor and Comforter. Kimberly shares practical wisdom on recognizing stalled growth, choosing alignment over comfort, and discerning toxic relationships. Explore the three C’s of insecurity: comparing, competing, criticizing...and how pruning relationships protects your calling, strengthens boundaries, and keeps you walking in purpose, obedience, and integrity.

Kimberly's contact info:

Website - https://www.thefewwomen.com

Upcoming event mentioned:

FEW Institute of Trainers, Coaches, Consultants Jan 29-31. 2006

https://www.thefewwomen.com/signup/p/fit-fullpay-ddy4n 

🎙️Hope Unlocked Listener Exclusive! Feeling stirred but not sure what to do next? Book a 45-minute Holy Spirit-led 1:1 coaching session w/ Hope Unlocked host Kristin Kurtz, founder of New Wings Coaching. This powerful conversation will help you move from stirred to activated—with peace, clarity, & a Spirit-led next step. Book your call HERE now–special pricing to listeners!

Chapters

• 0:16 Welcome And Guest Reintroduction
• 2:12 Few: Mission, Courses, And Expansion
• 4:32 The Call To Maturity In Leadership
• 8:45 What Emotional Maturity Really Looks Like
• 15:17 Holy Spirit In The Messy Middle
• 19:30 Instant Miracles Versus Lifelong Maturity
• 26:50 Tests, Betrayals, And Climbing Higher
• 33:40 The Number One Vulnerability: Toxic Relationships
• 39:08 Pruning People And Protecting Purpose
• 45:56 Kim’s Personal Maturity Journey
• 48:20 Don’t Choose Easy, Choose Purpose

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:16

Welcome to the Hope Unlock Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Kurtz, and I'm also the founder of New Wings Coaching. I help and empower wild-hearted and adventurous women of faith feeling caged and stuck, unlock their true purpose and potential, break free from limitations, and thrive with confidence, courage, and hope. If you're curious to learn more about coaching with me, head to NewWinksCoaching.net and be sure to explore the show notes for ways to connect with me further. Get ready to dive in as we uncover empowering keys and insights in this episode. So tune in and let's unlock hope together. Welcome to the Hope Unlocked Podcast. I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host. I pray this episode is like a holy IV of hope for your soul. Please help me welcome my sweet friend Kimberly Joy to the show. I'm very excited to have her back again today. She was on, gosh, back in October of 2025. It feels like just a very short period of time ago. But it um, gosh, we have we have more to talk about. That's why she's here today. So um, if you want to go back and listen to her first episode on Hope Unlocked, it was episode 166. And again, that was published back in October of 2025. And the name of that episode was Breaking Shame's Chains and Rising Boldly into God's Purpose with Kimberly Joy. So thank you for coming on again today. Um, if you could just maybe preface just a little bit about yourself before we get into it, that'd be amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39

Well, thank you for having me again, Kristen. I love how deep your conversations go and um on your podcast. And you really do unlock hope for people. Um so I'm sorry, I'm already like, what did you ask me?

SPEAKER_04: 1:54

This is gonna be a good morning. I know. Um I I was telling her earlier, like I just moved and I feel like I have moving brain, which is actually a little bit worse than pregnancy brain. So we're just coming into this, like we're having a real and raw conversation. So I know that she's gonna be releasing so much goodness here today. Yeah, if you could just share just a little bit about yourself. I know people can go back and hear the fullness of your story on the last episode, but before we get into today, just a little bit about yourself before we get started.

SPEAKER_03: 2:21

Uh well, first and foremost, I'm a mom. I have 11 children, uh, four daughters and sons-in-law, and um pretty soon 13 grandchildren. Wow. And um uh in my spare time, like bare time, I run uh an organization called the Fellowship of Extraordinary Women. It is a network for women who are passionate about their faith, their families, and their businesses. It is really a place for faith-forward women to step into the fullness of their identity and their purpose, particularly if they're called the business. Although we're just a mission-minded group of women. And um, you know, though that mission is whatever God says it is, and that's what we foster and encourage and equip women for. Um, inside of the Fellowship of Extraordinary Women, we offer three different certified courses for professional women. We have a publishing division, we have monthly meetings and all kinds of interspersed events and retreats and things in between there. And as of 2024, we expanded nationally and we now are offering an opportunity for women anywhere in America or or abroad to plant a chapter of Few in their city and continue to be a part of our movement in activating women, awakening them, and accelerating them in their divine destinies.

SPEAKER_04: 3:50

Yes, and I'm part of Few. I love it. It is, it's been such a godsend and such a wild way of being led to it. Um, I'm in the Twin Cities area. So Heidi Heino is actually the chapter president. And gosh, if you're in the area, please come check it out. Um we meet the second Friday of every month. Um, so if you wanted to reach out to me or to Kim and find out more about specifically about the Twin Cities, but you can also reach out to to Kim as well to hear more about it. And I'll have the information in the show notes. Um I know you have something coming up specifically. I don't want to pass this by, but do you have an event uh coming up soon for women that they can take part in?

SPEAKER_03: 4:31

Yes. Um I I guess it depends on when this podcast goes live on your channels, but um this year, 2026, we are going to be offering our certified courses each quarter. We have uh in January, we're offering our few institutive trainers, coaches, and consultants. This is going to launch women into their dream business, um, not just equip them with the skills they need, but help them with the launch, the marketing, uh, the branding, all that great stuff. It's also where we train them in the prophetic, in their identity stuff so that they're launching off, helping people. Number one, with the help of the Holy Spirit. There's no other way to help people that really works. Number two, in their own true identity, not their false identities, because we can amazingly we can do a lot in our false identities, but that's not our design. That was not God's design. He wants each daughter and son of God walking in the true identity in the kingdom that we were designed to walk in. So we do that, and then our other certified courses are uh the few certified confident keynote speaker course that's going to be coming up in the spring, both in Milwaukee and the Twin Cities. Okay, and then we will have our Few Institute of Leadership where we delve into biblical leadership for women in business, faith, family, and business. It's a uh different kind of leadership. We go deep into what God's word says and what God is calling us to do. What does leadership in the kingdom look like? There's a lot of great leadership content in the world for sure, but God is calling us to take that great leadership content and measure it against the word of God. The word of God is our plumb line for everything. And so when we begin to measure leadership content against the word of God, there are some tweaks, there are some uh revelations there that women need to know and understand. There is a call in the kingdom to maturity. And many of us try to step into our destinies and our leadership roles without the maturity, or we think that maturity comes because we digested some leadership content or we took a three-day course or we have a certification. Unfortunately, that's not how maturity works. And part of my message to women is God is number one, understands that maturity is a process and he's okay with it being a process. What he's not okay with for his sons and daughters is that we um ignore the process of maturity or don't make room for it or don't surrender to it. That's not okay only because we'll never fully live our purpose if we stay immature. It's not going to be mad at us, he's not going to kick us out of heaven, but he's going to say, if you don't engage in the maturity process, and by the way, this isn't just spiritual maturity, like knowing the word, being able to disciple others. It's emotionally maturing so that we grow up in all things. And it's when we grow up in all things that we can become the most effective, most impactful leaders wherever we go.

SPEAKER_04: 7:56

Yes. So good. Well, I know you have such a strong, you know, leadership teaching, I would say a preaching gift, prophetic. There's so many gifts that you carry. Um, I don't think we talked about this on the last episode. Um, but I love that you said, well, first of all, you said you you do this in your spare time. So I want to connect to that. I want to go back to that in a minute. But since we're talking about the process of maturity, um, could you share a little bit about, you know, maybe what that's looked like for you? And then second of all, maybe let's start with you. Okay. How does that look like for you? Because I think when people hear process, especially in this day and age, they think the process is gonna be a quick process.

SPEAKER_03: 8:44

Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny, Kristen. I made a reel uh last summer. I don't know, maybe it was maybe it was two summers ago. Don't you feel like the last five years has been such a blur? Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 8:56

I'm like, I have no concept of time. So don't even ask me when I did things.

SPEAKER_03: 9:00

Thank you. Yeah, I I made a a reel and I said, I believe that I've come to the conclusion. I'm I'm 54 years old. I think I was 53 at the time I made it, okay, that people don't actually mature emotionally until they're 40s or older. And that's if they've been engaged in the journey to mature for at least a decade.

SPEAKER_01: 9:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 9:30

And my theory on that is because of, and I I said right on this reel, this is based on zero scientific research. Okay. This is based on no degrees, no, you know, this is strictly my observation from living in the world, working with women, living, you know, with with people, having been married, having helped a lot of women through their interpersonal relationships, watching my kids and their and all my children are adults now. So watching them and their interpersonal adult relationships. So my market research. I don't know about that, but I can never school of hard knocks. I have a degree from there. I do too. Yeah, that's a good one. And I really have seen that maturity is the to me, the mark of maturity. And I I welcome anyone to give me other perspectives on this because I don't think I'm I'm the expert or that what I'm saying is final or anything like that. Certainly not comprehensive, but one of the observations I've made is that the mark of maturity is emotional stability. And so now think about yourself in your 20s, yourself in your 30s, yourself in your 40s. Think about the people you love in their 30s, 40s, 50s, even 60s, 70s, our parents. What kind of emotional stability do you see? And how does that translate to their relationships? And, you know, when I think about maturity, I don't just think the bills get paid, we've got a 401k. Like that's when people call adulting having some financial boxes checked. There are a cajillion people out there with financial boxes checked who their families don't want to be alone in a room with them because they're so emotionally unpredictable. Right. And so we're looking at someone who isn't just rounded in how responsible they are at work and in their finances, but how responsible are you for your emotions, your reactions to things? Do you take responsibility for your errors and mistakes in your interpersonal relationships? Do you go back to God from a spiritual standpoint and take responsibility for things you need to, what the Bible calls repent of or repent for? And the word repent simply means to change your mind or change direction. So the mark of maturity is can you change direction where you thought you were going along on the right path? Like you were convinced you were right. But somebody or some, you know, Holy Spirit or people came along and said, You're on the wrong path. Do you have the maturity to say, you know what? I will consider that. I will look at all the points you're making. And if you're correct, I will change direction.

SPEAKER_01: 12:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 12:27

To me, that is the mark of maturity. It also requires an incredible amount of humility. So humility and maturity go hand in hand. Um, think about how so often when we talk about adolescence, we equate pride and stiff-neckedness with immaturity. Well, how many 40, 50s, and 60-year-olds are out there still operating in their pride and being stiff-necked? So age does not equate maturity. And you know, your question again. Age does not equate maturity. Right. I I heard a an expert, a real expert, unlike myself, recently say that um just assume that everyone you're talking to is about eight years old emotionally. And he said, now eight is just a number he pulled out. It could be 10, it could be 11, it could be six, it could be 13. But what he's saying is this childhood age is about where they stopped emotionally maturing. And even though life and circumstances either taught them to or forced them to, or they were wired to become very responsible in some areas of life. Maybe they're very disciplined, maybe they work out seven days a week, maybe they're a CEO, but their emotional maturity stopped at a certain point and they're operating like still like they did in childhood emotionally. And the parts of them that you're like, yeah, but they don't throw temper tantrums and about, well, maybe that's true, but you don't know what they might be suppressing. The anger, the trauma that they might be suppressing, and it might have been at eight or 10 or 13 where they started suppressing it. And that's why they're not operating like a mature adult, because they stopped maturing the moment they started suppressing, the moment they started believing emotion is weakness, emotion is bad. I got shamed for emotion. Right. Or um, or maybe their model in their childhood uh home in their family of origin was total emotional chaos. And so they saw all that chaos and they went one of two ways. They brought emotional chaos with them, including into the workplace. The volatility follows them in every uh environment they walk into. That's one thing. Or again, they saw that as such weakness that they practice unbelievable suppression and control of emotion, and they are so out of touch with how they really feel about anything. They're just doing what they believe they need to do. And, you know, God is so about the whole person, He loves us, spirit, soul, and body. We're made in his image, he's spirit, soul, and body. We're spirit, soul, and body. And soul is made up of mind, will, and emotions. It's the messiest part of us. I'm gonna say that again. It's the messiest part of us. And it's the part that he is so ready and he's so in love with this part of us. This is my position on this. He's so in love with this disastrous part of us that he sent his Holy Spirit to abide right with it internally. Okay, he sent us an internal companion. Let me say it this way: uh people's messy, chaotic mind and emotions are so off-putting for other people that we avoid them like the plague. God sent someone to live with yours, He sent his Holy Spirit. So good. That's how I mean, think about the love that it requires. Like, I'm gonna go abide with the grossest part of you. And I'm saying gross because that's how I feel about my own. God doesn't see it as gross, like that's me talking about me. Okay. And so I'm like, God, you sent someone to live in that mess. You're crazy, you know. But yes, that's absolutely what he did. And and the the um the rest of the story is because that companion that we have, Holy Spirit, is called counselor, comforter, yeah, helper. And and that's where we need counsel, comfort, and help is in that messy part, our mind, our will, and our emotions. We our will gets us in trouble, our mind is a frenetic mess, our emotions are all over the map and they're linked to our minds. It's a very intricate system under sin's uh dominion, under the fall, it became very messy and self-serving. Even the way that our physical brains are wired and our minds are wired to self-protect. It it contradicts what the Bible tells us to do. I mean, it's a war. It's like Joyce Meyer's book, The Battlefield of the Mind. Our souls are at war, and he sent the captain of the angel armies, the Holy Spirit, to help us get the victory right in the trenches, yes, right in on the battlefield. He's right there with us. And I don't know, I've never said it like this before, Christmas is the first time I've ever used this metaphor, talked about this this way, but I believe it's because somebody who's listening, including me, needed to hear this today that you're not alone in the mess of your mind and the mess of your heart. And God doesn't see you as messy and off-putting. He sees you as glorious, he sees you as the work of his hands, he sees you as easy, you're easy for him, you're not too hard for him, you're not too much for him, you're not too angry for him, you're not too confused for him, you're not too wishy-washy for him. These are things the enemy has told you to keep you swirling and swimming when God wants you to walk on the water. And the Holy Spirit is there to lift you, take you by the hand, and say, You can walk on this water. You don't have to swirl and drown in it anymore. And but it's not going to happen in an instant. Some of the victories will be instantaneous. I do want to say that the process will be always be a process, but in the process, you can get instantaneous victories. So I want to encourage you, don't think it's all going to be slow and painful. Just say yes, say, Lord, mature me. I want to grow up in you. Um, one of the most profound uh uh, I guess, discoveries that I've made in the New Testament, where the first four books are called the good news, the gospels, is that ready for the good news, not so good news. Um the good news was that you can be instantly spiritually saved, and you can be even instantly physically healed. Wow, that's good news because Jesus on purpose saved and healed to demonstrate that the cross and salvation was to uh cleanse us of sin and solve the problem of sin. The problem of sin is all the dis ease, all the Breakdown and sickness in our bodies. So he demonstrated I'm not only the cleansing for sin, I'm the cure for sin's consequences. And it's that's why he said to the Pharisees, would you rather have me say your sins are forgiven or you're healed because they're one and the same? I never understood that until I realized that he came to demonstrate a two-fold solution cleansing for sin, a cure for the consequences of sin. But here's what you don't see in the gospels. You don't see him instantly mature Peter. Peter has to go through the process. Peter's mouth gets him in massive trouble. Peter is impetuous. Peter denies Christ. Peter is told by Jesus, get thee behind me, Satan. Peter gets some stingers, you guys. And and God, Jesus doesn't lay his hand on Peter and rebuke the immaturity. One of my favorite sayings, uh only because it's true, not because I like it, is uh you can't cast out immaturity and you can't disciple a demon. So what does that tell us? That the opposite is true. You cast out spirits, but you disciple immaturity. And Jesus discipled an immature man. Thank God Peter was a character in these stories. He was a real man that Jesus chose because so many of us can relate to him. I was never a conformist, I was never the easy child, I was never the rule follower. I and I always got in trouble with my mouth. And when I took a spiritual um, I guess, assessment, you'd call it, that was like which apostle are you most like? I was most like Peter, a shock of all shocks. But here's here was the good news. Peter had the gift of influence.

SPEAKER_01: 22:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 22:39

And so God was saying to me through this assessment, yes, you're impetuous. Yes, you have a big mouth, and it gets you in trouble. But guess what? I gave you the gift of influence. That's why I gave you that mouth. That's why I made you impetuous. I made you so that you're gonna jump in and say things where other people are gonna be quiet.

SPEAKER_04: 22:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 22:57

And so I learned that every person and personality, no matter how immature they are, they have a gift and they have a call. Will you walk through that maturity process? And again, going back to Peter, we see that Jesus tarried with him. He strived with him and got him through to the point where after Jesus rose from the grave and he appeared to the disciples again, he said to Peter on the beach, Peter, do you love me? And he didn't say it once, he said it three times to redeem the three times that Peter denied him. Yes, and he said it three times because Peter doubted his love for Jesus after having denied him three times. And finally, the third time, Peter, the question was, Peter, do you love me? Do you sacrificially agape love me? And Peter's answer was, Yes, Lord, I love you with the love that I need to love you with, because I saw what that other version of love did. And Jesus said, Then feed my sheep. And he was saying, Then I trust you to be my guy. And so Peter had to see what his flesh would do. He had to experience the disappointment of his immaturity and then see that God didn't withdraw his love. God didn't say you're disqualified. He said, I wanted you to learn what love really looks like so that you do my name right. So that when you're out there feeding my sheep, you're doing it with the right spirit. You had to stumble and fall and be picked up to grow. And if there's anything that summarizes my own maturity process, that statement is it. You had to stumble and fall so that you could see what does not work, who you can't be if you want to serve me. And you can be that person, you can stay immature and still be loved and saved, but to run your race with Christ, to cross your finish line. And Kristen, I'm out here because at 21 years old, I said, I want to fulfill my destiny. Someone told me I had a destiny in Christ. No one had ever told me that in my childhood. I thought this was just like you go to church, you encounter God, He makes you feel good, you speak the truth to people, you take a stand. I didn't know I had a blueprint in heaven that David wrote, All my days are written in your book in heaven. Well, I didn't know there was a book written about me. And when I found that out, something quickened in me. And I said, I'm living that. That's what I want to live. And then beyond that, I had no idea it would become my message to women, and that women would be quickened also to say, I want to live that too. And that's literally what I do. It's what few is. It's just a company of women who are like, I want what's written in my blueprint, period. Well, the good news is that's fabulous because you're going to cross that finish line in here, well done, right? But the hard news is that you're going to go through a process. David did, Jesus even did, Paul did, Saul Paul, um, Abraham did, Peter did, you know, so we're not going to be any different. And and we are just like them in that we're called for a purpose on purpose. And if we say yes, they're going to go through a process. And most of that process of emotional maturity, I'm going to keep it really simple, is going to be people doing you dirty. It's going to be betrayal, it's going to be disappointment. It's going to be people who said they love you, but they didn't demonstrate love. It's going to be people who said, I'm for you, but behind the scenes they were against you. It's literally Jesus and Judas, David and Saul. It is Joseph and his brothers. And if you can pass these grueling emotional tests, they're hard. I mean, I've listened to spiritual voices in the kingdom that are so anointed and have been given so much territory. And when they had to go through these kinds of tests, they considered quitting.

SPEAKER_04: 27:46

Yeah. And you have an example, even like in your own life, because I would I would consider you to be like, you know, a giant in this leadership role. I mean, I know you mentioned earlier with being an expert, but I really believe that you are an expert.

SPEAKER_03: 28:02

Well, thank you. I I think the more that I know, the more I realize I don't know.

SPEAKER_04: 28:07

The more we fall, the more of an expert we become.

SPEAKER_03: 28:10

Well, that's true too. But I part of wisdom is understanding you'll never know everything you need to know on this side of heaven. And so it keeps you from ever identifying. Wisdom keeps you from ever identifying as an expert.

SPEAKER_00: 28:22

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 28:22

But thank you. That's a compliment. And but it also is like a responsibility because you're telling me if that's how I'm viewed, then whoa, you know, I have a greater responsibility on me to live up to the maturity that God has called me to. And yes, I have I have said to the Lord, Lord, this is hard. And I think, um, I think I don't know that I have it in me. I don't know. And he's like, You don't.

SPEAKER_04: 28:51

Exactly. Yeah, you definitely don't. Everybody needs to hear that.

SPEAKER_03: 28:55

Yeah, I've said to the Lord, this is really hard, and I don't know if I have it in me. And he said, You don't. You have me in you, though. Yeah, you don't have it in you to do any of the things heaven's called you to, but you have me in you, and I give you the ability to do what heaven's called you to do. But he's also the God of free will, he will never force us to do what we don't want to do. So there was a point, I had a season of loss after loss after loss and um betrayal after betrayal. And and it was the particularly hard thing was it was things I thought I was done with. In other words, um, oh yeah, I went through that in 20, whatever, you know, went through that. Yes, like I went through with that with my family already. Like I thought check boxes were next to some of these tests. And then it happened again. And this time it was like double devastating because I thought that I thought we were done with that God, you know. I thought that test of betrayal was, I thought we were healed. I thought this relationship was stable now, or I thought this part of my life was set, and I thought I was done with these fears. I thought I was, why are these fears coming back up? I thought I was an overcomer and now I feel like a quivering mass. And and when the tests that you thought you were done with in the past come back up again, I read this in this book and I love this, Kristen. And I I I wish every believer understood this. We don't go around the mountain again because we failed. We're that is a scarcity, condemning devil mindset. Oh, I've got to go around the mountain again. I must have failed the last time. No. What we do is we go higher and higher up that mountain. Yes, it's up-leveling, right? We are and we're up-leveling on the same mountain or mountains because those are our vulnerabilities. And guess who knows that? The devil. So God is bringing us to greater victory in areas of vulnerability. He's not punishing us because we keep failing. He's saying, let's keep shoring up these loose ends so the enemy can't keep pulling on this one strand and unraveling you.

SPEAKER_04: 31:27

Yes. I mean, I'm almost seeing like uh your side of like a mountain where somebody's like mountain climbing, right?

SPEAKER_03: 31:33

Yes. And there's a sherpa.

SPEAKER_04: 31:36

Yes, exactly. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 31:38

And this sherpa is the Holy Spirit taking us higher. And here's what you need to understand: the higher you go up a mountain, the thinner the air is. The thinner the air is, the harder it is to breathe. And the other thing people don't understand is the thinner the air and the the the higher up in the atmosphere, the harder it is to heal from a wound. So if you have a big gash, um, two-thirds of the way up the mountain, you could bleed out.

unknown: 32:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 32:07

And so God has to take us through these healing processes and show us where we're in bad agreements with the enemy. So he doesn't have an open door to put a gash in our leg when we're two-thirds of the way toward our destiny and he takes us out for good. We see this with leaders in the kingdom where they're leading and they're strong, and all of a sudden they're they fall, they fall all the way to the bottom of the mountain. Well, there was a vulnerability that wasn't dealt with. Or that vulnerability was brought back to them and they caved. And so when God brings you higher up the mountain of your vulnerabilities, be grateful. He's protecting you. He's saying, Where I'm taking you, you can't afford for this to be a vulnerability.

SPEAKER_04: 32:54

So when I went through this, can I ask you a really quick question about that? Yeah. Um, you know, just in your own journey with, you know, having, you know, 11 children and working with, you know, many, many women, like, what would you say you've seen a lot of? I'm I'm just thinking that somebody is listening in, going, well, I wonder what like my vulnerability is. Like, what would be maybe a common vulnerability that you've seen come up over the years?

SPEAKER_03: 33:23

Oh, this is so easy to answer. Um, across the board, you know, you might think it's, oh, it's it's addiction or it's materialism because we're in America, right? Nope, nope. I'll tell you what it is. It's toxic relationships. Okay. It is trying to align with people you're not aligned with. And the amount of energy that that takes out of you, the amount of pressure that puts on you. I just was listening to a podcast, and the the woman's expert said, um, you can pray for everyone, you can be kind to everyone, but not everyone can have access to you. If there is not equal two words, covenant and consecration, they can't go where you're going. And the number one hindrance I've seen for people in their journey with God up that mountain is trying to drag people with them that can't go with them. Sure.

SPEAKER_04: 34:27

That's that's like again, kind of getting that picture of um I've I love watching like Mount Everest documentaries, just watching people do things that I personally wouldn't do. Um, but you know, seeing like maybe people that are part of a group that start off together and you know, somebody hasn't trained enough, or they went because they're like, Oh, I've got the money to pay for this trip, but they weren't ready for it. And it's like we're all trying to go together, but like you're saying, there's people that will drag, you know, there's potential for bringing harm to the entire group because of one person. Um, so how would you how would you release those people or how do you how do you navigate um you know dropping people off the trail that have been with you? Maybe even like for years. Um what does that look like for somebody tangibly um and and how would they kind of recognize that in, you know, let's just say they're looking at their friends as they're listening right now, they're looking at their family. Like, how do you navigate that or how have you navigated that?

SPEAKER_03: 35:37

That is that is such a matzo ball, Kristen. Um two things. I I could talk for three hours about alignment, relationships. Yeah, we'll have to have you back again. Leaving people, you know, I I say leaving them behind it using your metaphor of the climbing, and you do have to leave some people behind on that mountain climb, right? Um, but some people choose to go. And I think number one, it's do not compromise your standard of consecration to the Lord. If you refuse to compromise your consecration, like, no, this is how I want to live, not like that. People tend to leave you. Sure. And that makes your part easy. So that's that's the first thing. Number two, um, you have to be willing to prune your own garden. I remember a conversation where I had with God where He's like, You asked me to make you fruitful. And so that requires pruning. And it was such a painful time of loss of relationships in my life. And I felt greed, I had literal grief over losing important relationships and people, and um a lot of grief. And the Lord said to me, Here's the thing about pruning the garden of the lives of my children. Sometimes I take the pruning shares, and sometimes you have to. And I didn't love that. I don't want to be the one to decide this relationship doesn't work for me anymore, and I have to leave it behind. But that is part of this. You you have to decide who you can take with you. And sometimes it's asking the Lord, Lord, are there alignments in my life that you don't that are or people in my life I'm no longer aligned with? Maybe I was for a season, but now I'm not. Maybe I never was. And you have to be unafraid to hear the answer. Like just start writing names on a piece of paper as he brings them to you. And if you're not sure if it's you or him, ask for confirmation. Pray on this for a long time. You don't have to make snap decisions. God doesn't want you to make snap relational decisions, yeah. But you do have to be able to converse with God and hear his voice say, that was for a season, but that season has ended. And um, you know, that's that's another thing is being willing to take the shears to your own garden of your life. And then lastly, it's when someone betrays you, leaves you, uh, decides, you know what, I thought you were it, but I'm instead, I've judged you. And they have literally a spirit of judgment against you, and they decide you're this, this, this, and this. You have to take that as evidence that they're not your person. And what I mean by that is persons that are aligned with you might have beef with you, they might have a problem with you, but they're gonna come to you and they're gonna want to talk to you and hear you on it. They're gonna want to sort it and work it out. A person who's not aligned with you is going to judge you and decide their judgment is final and not be open to anything you have to say about it. They've just made a decision about you. And I've noticed that a lot of times the way God shows me who is for me and who is not is that right there. It's people that were quietly judging me and assessing me and critiquing me. Um, oftentimes it's where there was deep-seated insecurity, either in the relationship or in the person, and they were competing, comparing, and criticizing the three C's of insecurity. And I didn't know they were competing, comparing and criticizing until eventually the criticism always comes out, even if it comes out sideways. And what I mean by is even when they don't mean for you to know they're criticizing you, it will come out. And when that happens, I realize they're not aligned with me. They're they're with me for some other reasons, and I don't need to know what those reasons are. I just know that someone is competing with me, comparing themselves to me, and then criticizing me so that they feel better. They're not my person. Yeah, yeah, and I can say, I I once was that woman. I lived in the three C's of insecurity, so no judgment, but you're not my person. I'm I can't go to the heights I'm going to with insecure competing, comparing critical women as my in my inner circle. I can help insecure women overcome insecurity, and it's a lot of what I do in our trainings and in our content, but in terms of who I'm aligning myself with to climb that mountain. No, that's the vulnerability that will get us all hurt. That's what will leave us all offended. That's what's going to leave us all laid out before we ever reach the summit. I also can't be that woman who's competing, comparing, and insecure. I have to be able to celebrate other women's wins. I have to, if I have something comes up and it's not quite right, I have to be able to have a conversation and love and hear them out and have them hear me. I think the number one indicator of someone who's aligned with you is in addition to they're consecrated to God at the level you are, they're in covenant with God at the level you are. In other words, they understand their covenant with God at the level you do. They also seek understanding in the relationship. They're not there to be right, they're there to understand you and to be understood. So so many of these toxic relationships are about people fighting over who is right.

SPEAKER_01: 41:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 41:35

And that's how you know this is not a kingdom relationship. Jesus doesn't say go prove to people we're right. It is not the gospel. You know, he's like, go understand and seek to be understood. That's the essence of a aligned relationship, shared vision, shared understanding, humility, both parties willing to repent and turn away from things, turn toward each other. And I see relationship after relationship riddled with conflict, one person trying to get the other person to see the light, so to speak, one person to try trying to get the other person to act the way they think they should be acting. And it's really just a codependent soup that's holding you back from your true destiny. And um, the Lord even showed me that the enemy uses these kinds of controlling toxic relationships to stop us dead in our tracks from fulfilling our purpose in this life. We can spend all of our energy on toxic relationships, or we can spend our energy on building the kingdom, but we can't do both.

SPEAKER_04: 42:49

Wow. So much goodness, Kim. Kim really. I almost called you Kim. Oh my gosh, we were talking about this earlier, like your name. It's very important.

SPEAKER_03: 42:58

That's okay. I don't mind being called Kim. I really don't. Oh my gosh. It's all good.

SPEAKER_04: 43:03

So much goodness. I feel like we'll have to have you back again. I know you said you could talk about this for a few hours. And I do feel like there's so much that, you know, first of all, women can listen here and get freedom from today, but also, you know, dig deeper with um Pew, what has, you know, what's coming up in the future with, you know, these workshops and retreats. And um just look for Kimberly out there. She is such a wealth of information and connect with her for sure. Um I've learned so much from you, and I I definitely look up to you as one that I would love to keep walking on this um trail with you. It's fun because the Lord called me a Sherpa years ago and I was like, what is a Sherpa? Wow. That's that's why I started looking into like, you know, Mount Everest um expeditions, because those of us who are, you know, I would consider myself to be a trailblazer and you're a trailblazer and and ones that are willing to kind of go into the the thicket and use our machete and help um kind of pave it, pave a path for others, right? Yeah. Um so thank you so much for everything you shared today. I I feel like, like I said, I want to have you back because there's more I want to dig into with you, especially with this um spare time with 11 children and building a business. And how does that work?

SPEAKER_03: 44:20

Obviously, tongue in cheek. Um real quick, Kristen. I I realize I did not answer your question and I can do it in about a sentence. You said, what has my maturity process looked like?

SPEAKER_01: 44:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:35

And the short answer is it truly was these toxic relationship dynamics that I described. I've been riddled with them my whole life. I've played a part in them my whole life. And God brought me to a point of saying, after years of trying to learn better skills and growing in this area, he brought me to a point where I don't have any toxic relationships in my life anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 45:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_03: 45:02

And it took a pruning in me. It took a pruning in my, I'll call it my roster, my relationship roster took a major hit. But God was showing me that these were ways he needed me to grow up, mature, become holy, become godly, more so like Jesus. Learn the difference between love and enabling, learn the difference between truth and hurting people. And that's when he could make the most use of my life.

SPEAKER_01: 45:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 45:35

So much goodness. I mean, I'm I'm sure maybe some people are walking through this right now. And I feel like this has just been such a timely word that we didn't know we were going to talk about today. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 45:46

I guess so. You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04: 45:48

Yeah. So as we close today, I would love for you to um just think of that one who's listening in today. And do you have any other um wisdom or knowledge that you'd want to share with them? Any encouragement? And then would you pray us out today?

SPEAKER_03: 46:00

Yes. Here's my my encouragement. Please don't give up. Please don't give up. I God did bring before me the choice and said, if you'd like to just live a different life, I won't leave you, I won't forsake you. You'll still enter into my presence and my kingdom. You just won't live the purpose in your blueprints. And he he brought that choice to me when I wanted to quit. And um, but in the end, I'm like, I'll never be happy with that. I might be happy that it's easier, but I won't be fulfilled. And so here's my word to all of my sisters and brothers who are building the kingdom. Don't choose easy, choose purpose. Don't don't choose easy, choose purpose because there is favor and ease and grace on obedience. There is favor and ease and grace and blessing on your partnership with God to live what's written in your blueprint. All of heaven is behind those who say yes to their blueprint, all of heaven and all of hell fears those who say yes to their blueprint. So choose to be the one that heaven is behind and hell fears. So, Father, in Jesus' name, I thank you for your sons and daughters building your kingdom. I thank you for the purpose on their lives. I thank you that even the hardest things, the greatest losses, the deepest grieves, you will redeem for your purposes. I thank you, Father, that you're the healer, you can heal every wound, that you're the savior, you can save us from ourselves. You're the deliverer, you can deliver us from lifetimes of patterns that um started in our childhood that we think we're going to take with us to the grave. But no, you said you're our deliverer. You can mature and grow us into uh the people we were always designed to be. And Father, I ask you today for a new hope to arise in each heart that that everyone listening to the sound of my voice right now feels a spark of hope. I can do what God says I can do. I can be who He made me to be. I can go to every place he's called me to go, and I can do it with joy in the name of Jesus. Thank you, Father, that all of this is possible only because of your perfect son and his perfect sacrifice. We love you both and we love you too, Holy Spirit. We love you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who gets in our mess with us, who isn't put off by us. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_04: 48:36

Well, thank you for being a brave voice who's setting so many free. What is the best way that people can get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_03: 48:44

Um, you can follow me on socials at official Kimberlyjoy, pretty much all the channels. Okay. Um, or my website has a contact us page, the fewwomen.com, and it's women plural. So it's the F-E-W Women W O M E N dot com. And I'd love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_04: 49:03

Sounds great. Well, I will be sure to put her contact information in the show notes and cannot wait to have you back again. I'm going to close with our anchoring verse, which is may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And that's Romans 15 13. So thank you, Kimberly. I will be back with another episode next week. Take care, listeners.

unknown: 49:26

Bye.