Olive Tree Ministries

This was the most life changing week of my life! Murray Method level 2 completed 🙌🏻 I connected with some of the most incredible, brilliant people I’ve ever met, I was challenged, I learned so much, and I had the unbelievable privilege of sitting under the teaching of Marilynn Murray herself! What an honor and joy it was to attend this training 🤍

Humans are wired for connection! One vital step in producing meaningful, satisfying relationships is building a solid foundation of trust. Trust starts with empathy. Seeking to truly know someone and understand them is key to building trust. If you’re feeling misunderstood, invalidated, or seeing a lack of reciprocity in a relationship, it may be a good time to evaluate the aspect of trust within the relationship. It always helps to process with a trusted friend or counselor! May your relationships be rich in trust and your hearts full with connection and intimacy 🙏🏻🤍

Repression of feelings affects our minds as well as our bodies. I encourage you today to think about finding some safe spaces to open up your pain and take a look at it. Baby step by baby step, hand in hand, with a safe person, whether that’s a trusted counselor or a dear (safe) friend. Your feelings deserve to be heard, understood, and validated. You were created to be seen, known, and loved 🤍

Cultivating safety in relationships is fundamental to healing and growth. We cannot do life alone! If you are interested in finding someone to walk you through cultivating safety and trust and making deep, authentic connections I would be honored to journey alongside you 🤍

Have you ever thought about how everyone has locks on their doors? Even people who live in the safest neighborhoods in the country still have locks on their doors. Why? Because everyone needs basic boundaries to protect themselves.

You get to decide who has access to your home. You get to decide what hours of the day you prefer your doors to be locked. You have full control over the lock on your door.

In the same way, every person needs emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial boundaries. These are meant to protect us from harm, burnout, negative consequences, and many other things. Even the best things need boundaries around them in order to keep them good!

If someone kicked in your door and broke your lock, the alarm would go off to notify you that there’s an intruder. Similarly, your body will alert you when someone kicks through a boundary you have. It is important to become aware of these feelings when they come up, so you know what you want to allow and not allow. When you know where your boundaries fall, you can appropriately communicate with people about what you are willing to tolerate and what you are not willing to tolerate.

For example: if my husband were to start yelling at me, my internal alarm system would go off. I would then say something like “I can’t hear you when you speak to me that way and I’m not willing to stay in the room while you’re yelling. I’m going to walk outside and do some deep breathing. I’m willing to resume this conversation when you can communicate what you need without yelling.”

It’s really hard work to establish boundaries and have the support needed to uphold them! I would love to be the one to support you on your journey of learning to love and care for yourself, because you’re worth it! You can message me here or go to www.olivetreeministries.net for more info 🤍🤍

God has always loved us SO much that it was worth it.

The Father dug His hands into the dirt to form man in His image because it was worth it to Him.

Jesus Christ endured the agony of the cross on our behalf because it was worth it to Him.

The Holy Spirit was sent to dwell in us and bear with us in all things because it was worth it to Him.

God knows all things and He is sovereign over all things. He knew we would reject Him. He knew we would doubt Him. He knew we would try to replace Him. He knew all these things… yet it was worth it to Him.

Beloved, rest in this. It is absolute truth that God loves you with such fierce love, that nothing you could ever do makes you not worth it to Him. His love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres 🤍

To become your best self, you need safe people in your life. Regardless of how independent you feel, no one can thrive fully without healthy relationships. God has designed us to need other people.

If we do not realize what we are responsible for and what we are NOT responsible for, we can suffer from symptoms like over-responsibility. We will not carry our own load (Gal. 6:5), because we are too busy carrying the load of others. In this typical codependent behavior, we feel so responsible for others that we do not deal with our own pain and life.

Let’s say I have a friend who needs to borrow 50 dollars from me, but I only have 5 dollars. I cannot give them the full 50 dollars, all I can give is 5. Even if I desperately want to give my friend that 50 dollars, I can only access and give what I have ownership of.

The same concept applies emotionally:

You cannot give someone more love than you have for yourself. You cannot give someone more compassion than you have for yourself. You cannot give someone more care than you give yourself. You can give people love, compassion, respect, care and so on, but only to the degree that you have ownership over these things in your own life.

How can you love someone in their brokenness if you do not love yourself despite your brokenness?

How can you truly care for someone else when you have not tended to your own needs first?

How can you have grace and compassion on someone else when you condemn and shame yourself every time you fall short?

When we pull all of the compassion, grace, love, respect, and care out of our emotional toolbox and we use it to mend other people while we neglect ourselves, we are not actually being any of the things we truly desire to be. Why? Because, in essence, we are handing people fake 50 dollars bills.

The more you neglect yourself and give out what you do not already possess, the easier it becomes to burnout and become resentful of everyone you are giving to.

This would be a good time to gently examine yourself and see where you may be trying to give people things that you don’t have. Again, be gentle with yourself; you are doing the best you can with what you have! It’s okay to be where you’re at, just don’t stay there forever 🤍

I would love to walk with you on your journey towards self-awareness and growth! Please feel free to reach out on social media or visit www.olivetreeministries.com to connect with me.

Let’s walk together on this journey towards taking ownership of the things we need and want in our own lives so we have more to give 🤍

When you build a fence around your yard, you don't build it to figure out the boundaries of your neighbor's yard so that you can dictate how he should behave. You build it around your own yard so that you can maintain control of what happens to your own property. Boundaries do the same.

“A codependent person is one who has let another persons behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” -Melody Beattie. Codependency stops when we gain awareness of the cycle and make the conscious decision to walk out the necessary steps to change! This walk is not easy, it’s actually life-changing; but it changes things for the better. Healthiness comes at a cost; now you just have to ask yourself if that is a cost you are willing to pay! 🤍

This doesn't mean that you should cut out alcohol or caffeine altogether but limiting these things may help. Everything in moderation. You don't want to give up your morning coffee if it's something you look forward to ☕️

Every person’s experience is uniquely their own! We all hold aches and pains in the deepest trenches of our hearts. We all experience life with all the beauty and all the pain that it holds. Each person has their own perceptions, their own feelings, their own experiences, and their own mindsets. While we all experience differences, we share one common theme: that each person deserves for their experiences, perceptions, and feelings to be heard, seen, and validated. While we may not understand what someone is feeling or experiencing, we can still come alongside them and say “I see you.” Validation is simply letting someone know that they are worthy of being seen and heard, and fully loved right where they are. This is a good time to check in with yourself and see what you need. Do you need your own pain to be tended to, seen, heard, accepted? Do you need to work on being a safe person for other people’s vulnerability to be shared? Wherever you are in your journey, in this moment, take the next small step towards healing 🤍

"Things that can co-exist:

- Growth and Mistakes
- Anxiety and Confidence
- Accountability and Self-forgiveness
- Learning and Unlearning"

Source: Healthy Spirit & Body

Improved behavior is a byproduct of healing and growth, not the place from which we begin. Behavior modification is not always a beneficial place to focus growth efforts. True heart transformation is what leads people to new and improved behaviors. Focus on healing what has been internally broken and the behaviors you are trying to achieve will follow 🤍

I’m offering free 15 minute consultations only for the first two weeks of April! To set up a consultation please Dm me or email me at [email protected] 🤍

I almost cannot find words to describe how incredible this experience was. It was overwhelming, intense, freeing, safe, and so many other wonderful things. My heart is so full from experiencing this method and connecting with the people I learned with and from. I am so excited to announce that I have completed my Level 1 training of the Murray Method! 🤍🙌🏻

Our greatest strength is found in a heart that is surrendered, hands that are open, and a mind that is at rest 🤍 Abiding is a lifelong journey; it is the most worthwhile path upon which we could ever walk 🕊️

I completed a domestic violence course! As a counselor, it’s always important to me that I’m mentally, physically, and spiritually bettering myself. I’m also so excited to be trained in the Murray Method Counseling modality later this month. God is always on the move and He has faithfully led me through every step of this journey towards healing and creating a healing space for others 🤍

What an awesome opportunity this morning to support and encourage local mom’s in business .corner.murfreesboro

It was such a privilege to hear people’s stories and connect with so many amazing women! I’m so looking forward to all the ways God will work through the connections made today 🤍

A boundary without a consequence is not an effective boundary! This is the law of sowing and reaping. If a person sows destructive/toxic behaviors, they will reap negative consequences; unless someone else absorbs the negative consequence for them. When people have to face the problems and responsibilities that stem from their behavior, it should create a motivation to change! It’s painful to see the people you love face consequences, but it is also necessary for their growth 🤍

Are you ready to finally find hope and healing? Counseling is a beautiful, challenging, and worthwhile journey.

My name is Sarah Phillips and I would love to help you move forward in freedom! I am a Licensed Pastoral Counselor and a Professional Clinical Member of the National Christian Counselors Association. I have experience with a wide variety of counseling issues and I would be honored to walk alongside you on your healing journey!

Yes! It is so important to take time to truly examine ourselves. Do our actions truly line up with what we claim to believe? Is our daily walk in line with our values? It’s easy to automatically say yes, but after careful examination, you might find that often times, our values and our actions are not in alignment. Authentic self-examination + supportive accountability = Transformation. We have to commit to the process, take a deep look into things, and walk out the changes with people who love us enough to be honest with us and keep us accountable in an encouraging way!

There are countless reasons that people feel, think, and act the way they do. Finding a good counselor to connect with can be so helpful in gaining self-awareness and taking steps towards becoming whole. If you are looking for an opportunity to connect in a safe space, today is the LAST DAY to register for my upcoming counseling group! We will be talking about and walking out practical changes that heal! DM me or email me for more information, we would love for you to join us 🤍

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Did you know that Generalized Anxiety Disorder affects 6.8 million adults in the US? This is not even including the alarming rise of anxiety among children and teens. Anxiety does not just affect your mind, but also your body. It manifests in very physical symptoms like nausea, rapid heart rate, headaches, restlessness, fatigue, and so on. If you struggle with anxiety, you are not alone, and it is not a hopeless battle! There are several proven methods of treatment to reduce anxiety. Wherever you are in your battle with anxiety, just take one baby step towards healthiness. This could look like taking a moment to breathe and practice mindfulness, connecting with a counselor, confiding in a safe friend, or just taking a moment to congratulate yourself for surviving for this long. Please remember, you are never too far gone; there is always hope for healing 🤍