45: AM I HAVING DREAMS OR VISIONS?

Heal from depression, interpret and determine whether you are having dreams or visions, and investigate the link between this world and the spiritual world.

In this powerful episode of the Overcome Depression Podcast, Jennifer Stirling-Campbell and John dive deep into spiritual healing, differences between dreams and visions, and how dreams and visions can bring insight and peace—even in the midst of mental illness and emotional turmoil.

Whether it’s processing nightmares, developing spiritual gifts, or learning to trust spiritual downloads, this conversation leverages the power of prayer, your connection to God, and the truth He is trying to share with you.  Whether you just want to understand your own psychology better or you're seeking clarity in the spiritual realm, this episode offers real insight, hope, and tools for you!

View all LINKS and supporting content mentioned in this episode HERE: https://imaquarius.com/dreams-or-visions/

This Episode of the Overcome Depression Podcast is for You if You Want to Learn:

• How to overcome depression through processing and understanding dreams or visions
• How and why you may be receiving spiritual messages—and how to accurately interpret dreams and visions 
• How to discern if a vision is from God or another source
• What it means to have spiritual gifts and how to use them for healing
• How asking tough questions and questioning your current beliefs can lead to spiritual awakening
• How to pray and take proactive action in your dreams to protect yourself
• The role of guardian angels and how to trust them with your thoughts
• Why your thoughts are sacred and how you can them to connect directly to God

Transcript

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The Lord does have the ability to show us things we don't understand. And part of coming out of the darkness, coming out of depression, is being able to see and understand things we are not seeing And that can come in a lot of different forms. But just because you haven't had visions before doesn't mean that when you're ready, to make those steps forward that you won't be gifted with the gifts and talents and spiritual abilities that you've had all along but you didn't know you had until you were willing to open up to God and say help. If you are struggling with symptoms of depression or just want to expand your vision and improve your life, you are in the right place. And speaking of visions, that was actually, believe it or not, one of the pivotal turning points in my healing was when I reached kind of a point of no return in my life. My marriage was crumbling. I was experiencing significant... temptation in ways that I'd never faced before and I realized I wasn't strong enough handle it. And that scared me to death. And I literally had to plead in desperation for God to help me because I knew if I tried to do this on my own, I was going to fail. It was during that time that I was pleading, asking for clarity, help me understand this, what do I do? That my gifts started exploding. I started seeing things, mostly day visions. We're going to talk about visions of all kinds today, but the things I was seeing would flood my mind when I would ask the Lord a question. interesting period where I was, tempted to have an affair. It horrible. It was absolutely horrible. And I was trying to resist this temptation. trying to understand what about this person was making me so attracted to them. I'd never been tempted like this before, and I never thought I would be. So was very demoralizing, very humiliating, and gave me a sense of empathy for those who struggle with that sort of thing. that I'd never had before, to be honest. But I didn't want to feel that way, and I wanted to do the right thing. I was given kind of this, flipbook download of this entire person's life. And I could see why I was connecting to this person in such a toxic way. And it made me realize that I cannot go through with this. It gave me that understanding and the strength to move forward in a way that would be less damaging to my family and to myself. But it was those little Sherlock Holmes clues that I would get through some of these visions that gave me the courage and the hope and the encouragement that I'm not alone and I can get answers to my questions. And it wasn't always super clear. I would sometimes get these images in my mind almost like a play that would play out in my mind. was usually very fast. And I would start feeling myself losing the image. And so would get out a piece of paper and write it down really fast. And then the understanding of what it meant would start to come. There were several things that happened over this period of time, one of which did have one of my first night visions. I'd had plenty of dreams, where it was just processing information. But this one was different and I knew it. And I was standing in the most beautiful locker room ever seen. It had gorgeous wood ornamented. There were other young women in the room We getting ready for some kind of celebration and we are all in these white dresses. but We were all very joyful and happy and laughing and talking with each other and getting ready for this event. I also noticed that there were blue sashes on my arms. And I wasn't sure what that meant. We all went towards the exit of this locker room and opened up these massive beautiful wooden doors, went out. And we were just joyfully frolicking through this desert. nothing there, just this desert. We're running through this desert. And then we get to this pit. And it was not so deep that you couldn't climb out of it, but there was mud. And all of these like almost construction worker type men, working in the bottom of this pit in their trucks. And they were mud bogging, getting their trucks all dirty, almost like they were taking a break from work and they were having fun in their Before long, of all of the men in came out of the bit and were looking at a iPad that one of the girls had and they were all observing what was on this iPad and poking at it and that's cool. Well, I looked down and I saw the person that I had been tempted to have an affair with. They were still in the truck. They wouldn't come out. And found myself wishing they would come out of the pit. And then I woke up and I started asking, Lord, what did that mean? There's something about that that seemed like that wasn't just a dream. And I knew it. And as I started contemplating this dream, I realized that I was in this white dress and that my actions were, in effect, going into the pit to retrieve this person and try to help them. But in the process, if I was to go down into that pit, what would happen to my dress? It would get all dirty. And there would have been nothing I could do to make this person come out of the pit. It would have just gotten me all dirty. And I knew they weren't going to come out of the pit. They were going to stay there. So I realized, I have to stay strong. I have to stay out of the pit. Don't go down to their level. And I talked a friend of trusted a lot things like visions. She didn't think I was crazy. And I asked her, saw blue sashes on my arms. What does blue mean? It was very clearly blue, like a royal blue. And she said, well, in Jewish tradition, it's a sign of the covenant. Oh, promises I made to God I would stay clean. And again, just prior to this, I had not had any dreams or visions. Maybe I would use my imagination all the time, but I was depressed. I was using my thoughts in harmful ways that were demeaning to other people, that were jealous and so forth. And I think that our thoughts have power. So Knowing what I know now, I was probably doing damage with my thoughts and not even realizing it. I just thought I was just having thoughts. But The Lord does have the ability to show us things we don't understand. And part of coming out of the darkness, coming out of depression, is being able to see and understand things we are not seeing And that can come in a lot of different forms. But just because you haven't had visions before doesn't mean that when you're ready, to make those steps forward that you won't be gifted with the gifts and talents and spiritual abilities that you've had all along but you didn't know you had until you were willing to open up to God and say help. it was a pretty powerful experience. I think when we're desperate, we're seeking that knowledge, but I'll have inklings all the time. It could be just a thought, call this person or do this thing or go this way or don't do that. And a lot that happens as pictures in my mind. But I found that the difference between vision that comes from God and a vision that comes from something else, anything else, is that the one that comes from God, while this was a warning, most of the visions I've had, which aren't very many, the night visions, are warnings. But I don't feel fear. Even in the vision, I've never felt fear when it's come from God. It's been a warning. Don't do that. But it's accompanied by peace. Like it's gonna be okay. You'll get through this, but your warning. And when it's been from another source, it's been, an urgency accompanied by fear. Like you have to do this now, or you're gonna be in trouble, gonna get fired, or people won't like you, or you're in danger, whatever it is, and it's like, mm, there's something that just feels off about that, I'm going to ignore that premonition because it wasn't from the right source. So I think there's a lot of things that wanna scare us or stop us from doing things. So I know that John, you've had a lot of visions, a lot more than I have. And so I wanted to kind of turn it over to you and let you talk about your experiences a little bit and that has meant for you, why you have the visions that you do, why they're important. first I'm going to say that not everybody is the same. some people that's the gift that they're granted. And that's also one of the keys is not to be jealous or covet the gifts other people have. The second part I want to say is everybody, as Jennifer says, actually has the innate ability to communicate with God because we are all spiritual creatures. And when you start to get onto the spiritual wavelength for lack of a better comparison, You begin to hear things, you begin to accept things, and the more in tune you are with God, the more you begin to see what He wants you to see, what His will is in certain situations as opposed to your own. And he will always try to guide you to the right decision. When we talk about visions, everyone just defaults and says, Oh, visions are dreams. that's actually not true. There can be multiple types. the, um, Catholic church defines three types of visions. The first type of vision is known as an intellectual vision where you gain a supernatural insight or an understanding that did not exist, but suddenly you now know it. Another Neo in Matrix. Think of it that way. It's just like suddenly you have it, and got it. Yeah, you get a straight download of knowledge and that's actually called Infused knowledge and there have been some very great saints that that's how they receive their visions their messages literally God downloading everything straight to their brains and then they just knew things that they couldn't know a good example of an infused knowledge or an intellectual is during Pentecost when the Holy Ghost came upon the Apostles and they were suddenly able to speak and understand all these different languages, even some they had never heard of they just suddenly had that ability. Another one is a corporeal vision, one that you actually perceive through your natural senses. What this could involve is say you prayed, ask God for a sign, and then your neighbor suddenly shows up, knocks on your door and says, Hey, you want to go do this with me? And you realize that they just answered your prayer. So that's done through a physical. or a corporeal manifestation. type of I can always relate that to is kind of like a deja vu moment almost. And then of course the third type, it's known as the imaginative vision. And this is more often than not what people think of because imaginative visions occur typically when people are asleep. Sometimes people can have a waking dream where the world around them changes they receive information on a spiritual level, even though they're still awake at the time. And that's really kind of the three breakdowns with visions they can have overlaps. myself, that is one of my core gifts. As God told me, says, ultimately my gift is the gift of knowledge, the ability to know what other people do not know, know things that I cannot know otherwise. that's my gift. that began when I was five years old. it wasn't until years later when I gained a higher spiritual knowledge that the gifts expanded. became a way of life. And as my one friend even said, when I would tell him these experiences and he's like, how do you do it? how do you handle it like no big deal. like with anything else, if you have spent years doing the same job, I just have been doing this for so long. It has become such a part of my life that it's just second nature to me at this point. Not to say that God can't throw stuff at me and catch me off guard and surprise me because I will tell you The more I learn, the more I realize I don't understand, the more I question. And he's, like, easy to get overly confident when you start to develop some of these gifts in the beginning because you think you got it. You've arrived somehow. em I a day vision where I saw my future husband walk across water after my previous relationship walked away. And I saw what he looked like. He was tall, dark hair, when I met this person in real life, I recognized him immediately. Oh my gosh, that's the guy from my dream. But because was so confident and failed to ask more questions about the dream and I made my own assumptions, put the missing pieces together in my mind of this is what it meant, instead of asking God, what did this mean? And so I ended up marrying that person. And that was not, didn't have to be the end scenario, and it ended very badly. That was, this is the next person that's coming into your life. It's needful. You'll learn from this. And maybe that's what I needed to learn was the humility that went along with it. But you learn to ask more questions and trust God more as you realize that you don't have all of the supernatural powers and answers. It's God who does, and He's the one that can build on it. So there's like Visions 101. Visions 102, Visions 103. Jennifer brings up a really good point. if you think you're having a vision or, you're getting knowledge. You need to test it. You need to verify where the message is coming from. It doesn't matter where you're at spiritually. Everyone has their own way, but whenever I have a vision or something occurs, My very first act is I say command you in the name of Jesus Christ. Tell me who you are or tell me the origin and nine times out of 10, it's a devil. It's a demon who's pretending to be somebody else Cause see when you get on that spiritual wavelength, the bad guys can hear too. It's they might not necessarily. know what you're saying or thinking, but they can sense what you're feeling, what you're desiring and they will throw thoughts into your head. They will throw false images. They do it all the time. And yeah, I have these visions all the time. At the same time, I am always testing. second guessing. Great example. Uh, last night I had a conversation that went well with a member of the family. Then when I went to bed, I started getting all these weird thoughts, all these what ifs. And for a minute I started questioning things because I do question a lot of stuff in my head. started thinking, well, maybe I'm thinking. And then it finally dawned on me and I just said, get out of here. In the name of Jesus crucified, take your thoughts, take your actions to the foot of the cross and receive your judgment. Immediately. I felt the hostility and the thoughts vanished right then and there because was onto them. Then I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Um, but they do that. No. this, you're never going to get bad dream ever. Because sometimes even my son will say, well, I prayed for protection and I still had a bad dream. And I think in his case, it's processing. Like It was there to begin with, like there's stuff here that needs to kind of come out and God can help you process some of those emotions and things. He's had premonitions. He saw me get in a car accident one time. on way to school. He goes, Mom, I had a dream that you got in a car accident. I'm going, oh, maybe I should drive a little more carefully today. Even though I was trying to drive more carefully, made a stupid decision that almost got me hit. It's crazy. Like he has a gift kind of seeing things before they come sometimes. And it's not all the time. But I do think it's important. The reason we're told to pray morning and night specifically, because we can pray all day long and keep a prayer in our hearts and be constantly talking to God throughout the day asking questions and for direction. But specifically at night, it's important for me to ask for angels to surround me, my room, my bed, my kids, and to protect me from harm and attack so that I can sleep restfully and that my mind will be protected in my body, especially if it's been a bad day. Because if we're being beaten up, our light's gonna be dimmer. That's just kinda how it works. We have these physical bodies. If we're really struggling, the light, the energy is gonna kinda implode a little bit, and so we're gonna need more protection from God when we're not able to protect ourselves as well. So again, if we're, for example, in a really bad place and we're asking for protection, there's only so much God can protect us if we're not willing to make those changes, too. Right. And also remember, no matter how bad things get, God will never let it get to the point that you cannot resist, but you have to ask Him for help. You have to be humble and understand that you can't win. And I think that was one of the most humbling things that I ever learned I've gone up against Satan so many times and people were like, so you defeated him, you you beat him. And I'm like, Nope. yeah. These are battles. And I said, one thing I have learned is yeah, Satan is powerful. Satan kicks my butt. even the lowest demon on the totem pole can kick my butt. People say like, no, we're in control of the demons. No, you're not. they're strong. They are powerful. And I acknowledge that. with that caveat, God is in control of the demons. And so when you rely on Him you have all the you have access to the greatest power that ever was. like easy peasy for Him to cast them out. But you don't have innately the power to do it. But I do say that your choices and your ability to access God's power in you, which is part of that light, your aura, Mm-hmm. how you shine, it's all coming from Him, but you have the agency to access it. So I do think we have the power over evil, but we have to be aligned with the light in order to do it. have to be aligned with God and trust in the gifts that He has given us. Like it says you will command in my name there was this one exorcist he was actually the demon was talking to him through the person he was trying to help and the demons told him You have no power over me. I'm not afraid of you. And the exorcist looked at him and says, I totally agree, but Jesus is standing right behind me and you better listen to Him. And then the demon just shut up. That was the end of it. Well, I think it's interesting people in the Christian energy healing modality, I've heard it said before that, I have to ask permission before I work on someone or try to remove things that hurting them And I'm like, pfft. bullcrap you do. Like I'm not talking to that. You know, I'm not asking the demon for permission to make it leave. like if, that person's being overcome by something, I'm not asking permission from that. No, I'll ask God permission. May I help this person? Is this the right time? Would this be a good thing for me to do today? But no, I'm not going to ask the thing that's possessing them. If I can cast it out, of course they're going to say no. That's crazy. Right. if we want to get back to the vision, so again, that's kind of a caveat, but you have to understand. Well, you have to understand the spiritual battle to understand the power of visions and why God intervenes. If you receive a vision, there's an instinctive knowledge that you understand that you did receive one. you just have to learn to attune to that, but also I've never had a vision from God that has left me fearful or nervous. Every time something has come from God, even when he shows me these horrible events and He says, what are you going to do to prevent this? Basically. Um, it's always peaceful. One of my guilty pleasures when I actually receive a vision or have a communication with the angels or with God it's peaceful. It is such a beautiful, almost ecstasy Yeah, I too have had revelations in many forms that were not pleasant. But that knowing and understanding there's just this surety that I've got you, it's gonna be fine. This is the plan, I'm in control, and you're not. But just having that kind of heads up, I'm like, okay, thank you. Like Even if it's not news I wanted to get. versus a fear, like what if, what if I'm so more scared, so worried, what if it's completely different? Completely different. and like I said, I've had all kinds of interactions. all three types infused knowledge, imaginative, I've had all of it. So, and I've had all three separately. I've had everything mixed back and forth. That's just the nature of my gifts. And that's also why I really tend to live my life without fear. Hmm. I can still be fearful. It's like a fear of falling So I still have some little issues here and there that, God allows it to happen to show me you need to work on this. You know, you need. uh spots or Satan will, one or the other. If we let it go too far. And more often than not, people will say, well, why does God permit Satan and the other demons to do what they do? He's allowing them to expose our weak points, to expose what He wants us to, overcome. He will do that. Oftentimes it's either through other individuals. Or it could be through a dream, a vision, a prophecy. I wanted to talk a little bit about people with depression and anxiety who have nightmares or just really disturbing dreams on a regular basis and just the torment that that can be some of these individuals. didn't have super bad dreams often. I didn't recall my dreams, but I do remember some very disturbing ones. it's, think most of us have them. when you do something horrible, in your dream, that you're like, I would never do that in real life, but my subconscious just did it. You feel all this guilt because you did it in your dream. I had a dream. years and years ago that my mom was smoking and like, you should try, here's your cigarette. And I started smoking with her. I was just like, what the heck? I felt horrible when I woke up. recently, I had a dream I I was married almost did something immoral with someone else. stopped myself in the dream and was like, what am I doing? What am I doing? And was grateful that I was able to stop in my dream. I think we can learn to do that, where our dreams just don't completely take over if we can recognize we're in a dream and start taking over thing that's going on. Because I've done it. the times where I did, I was really grateful. that I was able to stop it manually even though I was in a dream and take control. Right. There is a difference between a dream and a vision. Yeah. Yeah. being able to access God in a dream that isn't nice. That we can actually ask God for help in the not-vision dream and be able to end it better or process it better. get into that habit. Everyone knows that you can pray when you're awake. People can pray. People can think about God. What people do not realize. And you is that never stops. It's a 24/7 thing! practice prayer in your dreams. mean, I understand dreams help you process the day's events, helps your mind come to terms with certain things, I understand all about that science. But there's also the spiritual aspect. If you realize that even when you're in a dream, you have access to God you can pray to God even within a dream. And if you can train your subconscious to just instinctively pray. For instance, I was having a bad dream once and I've trained myself to the point whenever I have a bad dream, I instinctively just go, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, I love you, save souls. that's it. Something basic. I will do that even in a dream or I've noticed that when I'm having a bad dream, all of a sudden I'll see something that reminds me of God and it immediately shifts my focus. So even though it's not. Yes. to recognize you're in a dream or do anything about it, ask for some specific kind of help. that Will you come to my dream when I'm stuck in it and remind me that you're there? Like, will you send me a sign in my dream that will get me to remember, yeah, I can pray? We can ask for those things. What it would look like for you, I don't know. I don't know what kind of sign you would send or what kind of practice would be required or blocks be removed. But my dad had a really, really awful dream years and years and years ago when I was teenager. sat us down and said, I have to tell you about what just happened. And he was really exhausted, laid down to go to sleep and he had this dream. It was very simple, but he was just standing in front of this man. And he felt the evil from this man. it was just pure evil and he knew it. And he was just staring at him. And he would wake up, like, kind of in a sweat and just, oh, like, I'm so glad that's over. And he would go back to sleep and the man was still there. And it just kept happening. He'd wake up and go back to sleep and he was still there. Like, kind of unusual for a dream. Usually you can't go back, reenter the dream again. He was so exhausted and quite frankly scared. there was one point where the man in the dream kicked him and he woke up and his leg was really hurting. And that was the point he's like, my gosh, I can't do this. He got down on his knees and he said, Lord, I'm so tired and I'm really scared. Will you please help me so I can get a good night's sleep tonight and I can be saved from this evil that won't leave me alone? He went back to sleep. Dream again. There was the man standing in front of him. But this time, beside him stood Jesus Christ. And he was no longer afraid. And he knew this man had no power over him. And then looked away from Christ and then looked back again. And he couldn't see him anymore. But he knew he was there. And he was able to sleep for the rest of the night. So one example of what God can do for you in your dreams. done it before. It's not easy to get into that habit but you can train yourself to do it. that's very true. another technique that might be beneficial to people, especially if you believe in angels, you know, everyone has their own guardian angel and they're always around you. God is the only one who can read your thoughts. Nobody. Even Satan cannot read your thoughts. They can read your facial expressions. They can read your actions, he actually can, he can guess and he's super genius. So go from there, but he actually cannot read your thoughts. Your thoughts are God's access alone. if you give permission. to your angel and you say, God, I give them permission to know my thoughts. it has to be of your own free will. It has to be truly given. So they will actually be able to read you and understand you even better. requires a leap of faith. It requires a lot of trust. But I can tell you is there in the first place, and why do you think it's hard to offer that sincerely That's one of the gifts God gives. reserves the ability to read everybody's thoughts for Himself because He's designed you. He knows you, understands you the best. Nobody, nowhere else will ever know you, love understand you as well as He does, regardless of what happens. And that's a special grace he has reserved for Himself. Almost like a protection because He has his own plans. Satan and the other fallen ones were angels at one point. They all have the same gifts. So even your guardian angels have the same abilities. They cannot read your thoughts, but they can read your body language. They can understand events as they're occurring they can sense your will but when you Open up your thoughts to your guardian angels you give them another layer of trust You give them a access to a whole nother layer of help that they can afford you it gives them even more of an edge. and You don't have to do this. But as you trust them with your thoughts, they start trusting you more with their thoughts scripture guards your thoughts, your words, and your deeds just came to mind. It probably has a much deeper meaning than I thought. If you kind of, you really look at that and it's your thoughts, God has access to it, but he gave us this ability that it's not accessible to anybody else unless we want it to be. That's kind of beautiful. It gives us kind of that control. would add, if you decide to say that prayer or invite your angels to listen to your thoughts, be specific because there are evil angels too that are assigned to you. So God's angels only. God's angels only can read my thoughts. Yeah. Yes. God's angels that were assigned to me words do matter words matter. Make sure your will is in the right place when you do that. Now, as far as why some people might not want that not everybody has that same level of trust. It's not something that happens overnight, especially when you're going through depression, you're really unsure of things and you're affected by negative emotions. Sometimes it's hard to see the tree through the forest. That's kind of what you're trying to do. trying to find that truth despite all the diversions, which means it really matters where you're at. spiritual level. little act of trust goes a long way. to develop more trust Lord, I want to trust you. I don't right now because was there. I wanted to believe, but I'm like, gosh, life's so bad. Like I feel kind of abandoned. I don't get it. You know, so I had to develop some of that trust. And when I pray and ask for guidance, sometimes things would get harder, and I'm going, what the heck, why? I just did all the things you asked me to do and it just got harder? So there's a level of trust that you have to understand that God has the bigger picture that you don't, but it does take a massive amount of love and understanding that I don't see it, I'm gonna just keep going, knowing that He's got it, even though I don't get it right now. I don't, I can't see it, but someday I will. Right. that does affect your visions. And as I've said, with my gift, the way it works, I can't tell you how many times I've been taken places and my guardian angel has been right next to me the whole time. Like he takes me, he guides me and leads me to wherever God wants him to go. I understand that we're inseparable And the way God got me to recognize how much he meant was he said he was going to take him away. Demi-Deleon appeared to me in the vision along with God and he says, he's going to leave you. I have to take him away for awhile. I, threw a fit. I mean, I started crying But that was the moment when it really dawned on me how precious of a gift that Demi-Deleon is and the level of trust I needed to have. wanted to have, because if the trust goes up, the love is exponential after that. With that said, that made me think of kind of a tangent, but very much related. Demondillion, obviously a good guy to have around. Definitely a good guy to have around. You want that guy on your team. You want him there all the time. but, when I was depressed, I started recognizing beings that I was clinging to that weren't necessarily going to help me progress. But I was comfortable with them, or I liked them for different reasons. There was a female at one point I was trying to let go. She wasn't bad, she was nice. And that's why I liked having her around, because when I was poo-pooing on myself, She would go, no, you're very sweet. You're very nice. You should be nicer to yourself. But it wasn't an angel. It was just person who died. They had good intentions, but these are just people. might give you advice they think good, but it's not good. And then there's darker things too that you can be clinging onto thinking, this is my friend. This makes me comfortable. I like having this around. This makes me feel powerful. letting go of anything. Yeah, sometimes you can have the wrong friends and you think that helping you or that they're good for you. When the only way to level up is to siphon some of those out. Like, you time is up. I've outgrown this. You gotta go. and then let the ones that have been waiting the whole time come closer and come in and have more influence in your life. And that can be hard to do, because you might feel like, this a part of me, or this one helps me with speeches. and by myself, am I going to be able to give a good speech without them? It could be something as simple as that, and you don't even realize you're doing it because it's on a spiritual level, but allowing the Lord to send you what you need and letting go of what is not serving you. physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and very literally too. People on the other side, I had to let go of in order to start hearing the Lord better, because they were kind of loud and they were kind of dominating. And I think a lot of people will think, those are my angels. They might not be. just a consideration. They might not be. So question. Ask God questions. Questions you don't want to ask. sometimes it's hard to get those answers or to realize that, the last 25 years I've been listening to this person that wasn't even my angel? Dang it! You know? Dang it! But that that can be a reality. And in dreams, sometimes these people will show up. Maybe you're like, don't even know people that show up in my dreams, but they're people around you in just a different realm that you can ask to leave. And that, And that all goes back to testing the spirits testing the images you saw verifying they true or not? Even within the past week. I've had a couple deja vu moments where I'm like I've already done this before. It's continual with me at the same time. I will tell you nine easily nine times out of ten Some of the quote-unquote visions that I receive are false Because I test them. I call it like shotgun technique when he gets really frustrated with me he will throw 100 truths at you. if it gets you to believe a single lie, if he can get that, yeah. And if he can get, just get that one crack in your armor, he will do it. In my case, he tends to use visions a lot because that is my gift. But he will always come at you from whatever angle that is and usually from something that you're good at or don't even realize. But always keep mind. us. I honestly think those who struggle with anxiety and depression are some of the most gifted spiritually people on this planet. But their gifts are being used against them. They're using it against themselves. They're self-sabotaging. They just don't understand how to manage their gifts yet. And if you can turn to the Lord, ask him to help you learn how to use your gifts properly so that you're healing yourself and healing others rather than the opposite, which was what I did for years. Years and years and years. I was like weapon that was being used on the wrong team because handled by the wrong handler. And I had to literally reject that in very real ways. and Cling to Christ. Let Him use me as a tool the way He wants. And then redirect those gifts new and powerful ways that I never knew was possible. If you are struggling with anxiety or depression, you are simply suppressed. Like your gifts are being poorly. are worth so much. and Satan knows how much damage you can do if you heal. So take that as encouragement that if you're suffering this much, there's a heck of a lot of power beneath all of that when you figure it out. And that is my hope for you. That was me for so many years, I didn't have that strong Christian upbringing and I listened to the wrong side and I let my gifts be manipulated. thought, I was doing the right thing and never saw the danger, never saw wickedness behind it. When I converted truly and embraced God and then God's like, he manipulated your gifts. He twisted the gifts I gave you. And then God fixed me. And that's what it had to take. It took God to fix me. And it wasn't an overnight process. It wasn't like God went in and go, okay, you're You're normal. St. Peter, the apostle, the one who established his church denied Christ three times. Even after being told he was gonna do it. No, I won't. Yeah. And Jesus asked him after the resurrection, do you love me? Jesus asked him that three times in order to make up for the three denounces. And that's the way God worked. He does that with all of us. So yeah, I had to work. I had to constantly prove. my trust in God. And that's why I had so many visions where I had to literally keep proving to God over and over again that I was sincere and that I was honest with my change, with my conversion, and that I really did want Him in my life. It wasn't a one and done. struggled, I fought. But the thing is during that entire process, He encouraged me. He backed me, it pushed me forward. And that's why I am who I am today and why I have an understanding of things. And that's one of the reasons he wanted me to go through that experience, why He allowed it to happen. I understand it now and I can help others who are going through a similar situation. And Jennifer is right too. Satan always attacks people through the gift God has given them. He always twists it and manipulates it and tries to make them think that that is the normal. re-re-resent, resent your gift. Like, which is what you described. Like, I don't even want this because it's so painful because it's being used in convoluted horrible way. don't be afraid to be sorrowful when I finally understood some of the things that I had done and some of the pain that I caused Jesus when He really allowed me to understand how my actions were one of the hammers on his nails. I can't tell you how sick and sad I felt at that moment when it really dawned on me what I had done. but if that was the thing God wanted me to understand, He wanted me to realize, of course, first of all, I'm not perfect, and I accept that. You have to learn to accept things. So the sorrow part, doesn't have to last a terrible long time. You process, you move on. I think the problem with so many people who struggle depression is sit in the mud and they just condemn themselves over and over and over and over and over again and it's not helpful to anybody. To no one. Doesn't help you, doesn't help the people around you. You gotta get out of the mud. Clean off. Admit that I don't want this mud on me anymore. This is yucky. And... I'm sorry that got mud all over everything else that I touched, whatever is. yeah, I, looking back, especially with the gifts I have been offered and given, I used those gifts. I didn't know what I was doing, but I've learned how powerful my thoughts are and that they can be used to heal and they can be used to harm. I did not realize the depth of how much I was harming people with my thoughts. We can all do this, but I think for me it's a bit of a superpower. And realizing that I was doing that for the years and years and years that I was depressed, just all the horrible thoughts I thought about myself and other people were quite literally hurting other people. If they had protection in place and they were praying and working through things, does that mean I had power over them? No, but I was certainly affecting them, even though they didn't know where the energy was coming from, if that makes sense. So just being able to acknowledge that, this power, it needs a reliable container, and I've got to be it. Like, I have to learn how to manage this for the good of myself, the good of my family, the good of all mankind, and start using it in a way that will... make you into the warrior you were meant to become, or the teacher, or the mentor, or the peacemaker, negotiator. There's so many different roles that we have to play. We're not all outright warrior fighters. But every battle that you win, regardless of what it is, you're going to lose some, you're going to win some, and you got to keep perspective that this is about the war. It's about winning the war, guys. You can't win every battle. You have to realize we're all in this together. Every human and what Jennifer was saying with the thoughts, I had a basic understanding of that. God allowed me to really perceive the true depth of thoughts how thoughts manifest and how we're all interconnected. there was a Biden speech on TV a lot of people I'm around do not like him, et cetera, et cetera. And when I started listening to these commentators and they were talking and they were throwing all this negativity towards his direction, most people who watched that were only listening to the words. At that moment, God allowed me to perceive on a spiritual level what was happening. And I saw millions upon millions of negative thoughts, all being focused on that man at the same time. And it just. you're like the compassion, even though I don't think he was a good president. I don't like what he did at all. But it's like, oh, my gosh, he's a human being. like that. That's not gonna help him be a better president. If we're throwing all this at him. I mean, the onslaught. my gosh. what people don't realize. Your thoughts literally affect everybody else. It's a domino effect. one of things that happens after you die, If you can research this, please do. God allows you to relive your life, but he shows you how your actions and how your thoughts influenced everybody else around you at the time. So every negative thing you've said, He allows you to see the domino effect that you caused. A ripple. Likewise, every positive thing you've ever said, He allows you to see the ripple effect, because we are all interconnected in that way on a spiritual level. And the sooner you realize that, the better, which is also why it's very important if someone is depressed, they need rally behind. People need to support them. positive influence, compassion. gotta be real, because again, I know I've said this before, but people who are depressed, hard to accept positivity. I think encouragement and just being real, help them just get back to reality. Like This is not the truth that you're seeing about yourself. but not overdoing it because it gets rejected. as a depressed person, I would be like, no, I'm not. No, it isn't. it's like too positive, it's like, no. But to just be real, be compassionate, be kind. We are all suffering in some way. if so, I had an experience this week something that happened quite a few months ago, was tormenting me. I'd made a mistake that it wasn't like a massive mistake, but it had really irritated this person in public that I didn't know And she was being really patronizing and rude to me. And it kind of caught me off guard and really hurt my feelings. so here I was thinking about it and wishing that I had handled it differently or that I hadn't done the dumb thing in the first place that would have made her mad. I finally was like, I know how I can handle this. Why am I ruminating about changing anything. And so I asked the Lord to help me. And talked about this before, but I redid the scenario in my mind several different times and opened up that almost like, can we try this again in a spiritual way, like inviting this person to redo this event with me? And... I was able to talk with her frankly and kindly and it invited a kinder response from her. And then we hugged. It was a vision that asked the Lord to help me work through so that I could change, kind of repent and offer forgiveness and repentance for her. And I'm sure she has no idea I did this, but whenever I have done this and I've found out how the other person responded afterwards, even though they didn't know I did it, there's been relief for them. And so this is something we can do. We can ask the Lord to help us take us through a scenario or vision where we can offer forgiveness, offer a conversation. There's so many times where there's not people who are safe to talk that wouldn't go well if we tried to confront a person, right? Like We know these situations, but we can invite them in a spiritual sense. and ask the Lord to mediate a conversation between us and another person spiritually. I really believe that. And so we can have healing, we can have relief from things that have happened in the past if we can be guided through those things in vision or if you don't see visions very well, if you don't visualize through just a conversation. with God as the mediator that can help you work through some of those things from your past or even present like mine was pretty recent that can help you to overcome and renew and send out really beautiful ripples that can heal. I know. regardless of how you get the information from God, even if it's not in vision form like we've talked about. It's that understanding. It changes everything. the depression and anxiety, it's built on lies, so many lies. And it's digging through those reframing those in a way that, wow, I'm starting to see, right? And vision is seeing. am actually going to have a few people on in the near future who knew me as a child as a developing adult who can tell you just how bad I was, you know? if you're listening, you're going, oh, she couldn't have been that bad. Oh, oh, I was bad. So is hope for you if there's hope for me. That's all I'm saying. One of my greatest prayers to God is that if I can help someone be better than me and not make the same mistakes I did then I will feel that I've accomplished something it's kind of messy, but those are the greatest stories and you can write an amazing story with your life. There's life so far, you've got life left over if you're listening to this podcast, I would encourage you to continue. We have so much good content coming up. Thank you for being here today. We love you. We love you. And this is the Overcome Depression Podcast. I am Jennifer. and I am John. We will see you next time.