Speaker 1: 0:43

Welcome back to the Fit podcast. My name is Amy Ramsey. I am your host. I'm so grateful that you join me week after week and whether you're here on the podcast or you're on the YouTube, I want to say thank you. Thank you so much for being here All right Today. I am so excited to introduce my friend now, but a remarkable woman that I have had the pleasure of actually being her coach for uh, for a while, and she is. She's just made such an impression. You know, sometimes you meet people in your life and you're like, wow, I I wish that could rub off on so many people, because she had a dream, a big, audacious, ridiculous goal, and she activated and she did it and I'm just so grateful for you and your witness and what you've done. Carrie Watts, welcome to the show. So grateful that you could join me today.

Speaker 2: 1:44

Thank you, amy, I'm happy to be here. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Okay, so you have impressed me so much, carrie, like you just blew me away when we were coaching together one-on-one. I mean, it's just sometimes people struggle to get to a place of creating the momentum that you just put yourself in because of fear and insecurities and self-doubt. Very normal, right, very normal. I've struggled with that. I'm sure you've struggled with that to some extent, but you were like, okay, yeah, I'm scared. Okay, let's go do it, let's go whatever. I don't know how to do that, but I'll figure it out. Okay, let's go. Like you, just, there was a goal set and there was an expectation that we established. And you're like, okay, yeah, I don't know how I'm going to do it, but let's go, you just are, you really are outstanding. I don't know if somebody's told you that today, but you are.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Well, thank you, amy. Well, and you're the reason that I chose you to be my high performance business coach because I could see how successful you are and how energetic you are. And I said you know what, if anybody can help me cross this finish line, amy can.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Oh well thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Well, we were a good partnership. We are a good partnership together. I'm so excited about the work that you've done and I cannot wait you guys wait till you hear about what God put on her heart and what to do and her obedience that followed. So so you're going to love this story. Hang. Hang with us to the very end. It's going to be so good. Carrie, before we even jump into your book crisis of faith and jump into why people should buy this book, so many of the women that are going to be listening are about our age, and usually what we've healed from personally is what we're passionate about. And so what was the catalyst behind you writing this? What is your story basically? How about that? Let me just cut to the chase. Tell us about you, sure.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Well, I grew up in a small house with seven people. I'm the youngest of five kiddos, so we were always busy. My mom and dad both worked and I had three brothers, two sisters, and we both went to church Sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night. You know, just your typical middle class Southern family, I guess, lived in the buckle of the Bible belt, as most people say, and I just naturally had a positive my cup's always full kind of attitude, was a cheerleader, a softball player, all the things, but I always had a secret that I couldn't tell anybody, and so I just did a really good job of not talking about it and just putting it off to the side and turning away from it as much as I could, because I think that that's what we do. As good Southern women is, we just put on a happy face. And so when I was in nursing school, when I was 20 years old, one of my nursing professors was just encouraging us, as we were taking care of our patients physically and mentally, to take care of them spiritually too. And, amy, I've heard you say that that you are, you've got your triangle and you want us to be healthy spiritually, physically and mentally. And that's what I was taught in nursing school and there was just that little voice that always said that I needed help. I needed some wise counsel. I needed some counseling because spiritually, yes, I had accepted Christ, I was baptized, I was very active in my youth group, in my church, but I knew there was something telling me to go get professional help and so I drove myself up to the Reformed Theological Seminary Counseling Center. They called it the White House. It was in Clinton 30-something years ago. It's in Jackson now. And so I went in there and I just told them I needed to see a counselor.

Speaker 2: 5:38

And through many months of counseling I began my healing journey and married my best friend and he went to with me and we did some premarital counseling. But throughout those years we were married, eight years before we had our first child and I thought I was healed. And then these little people came into my life that were just testing me. It wasn't their fault, they were just babies. You know, they're just little people and that's what they do. But I realized that I wasn't as patient of a mom as I should have been and I had some anger issues. I was never physically abusive to my children, ever, but I could feel just the emotion stir and I didn't know what to do with those negative emotions. I didn't know where they came from. So I started going to counseling again. I was like I must need some help and so that throughout my 30s really helped.

Speaker 2: 6:31

And then in my 40s I started going to the church that we go to Pine Lake, and even though I'd been in church my whole life, I'd never read through the Bible. Well, now I've read through the Bible eight times since I've been going to Pine Lake and the Lord meets you in his word in a mighty way and the Lord just started speaking true life over me and some of the lies that I believed, even from childhood trauma that had kind of entangled me, enslaved me, had me in a somewhat of a little prison inside myself. All of a sudden I was started feeling free and I started feeling creative. I think I've started feeling who God wanted me to be Like.

Speaker 2: 7:12

I felt like I was stepping into my original purpose that I had suppressed so long ago, and so I realized I really like writing and things. The doors were opening up. I was where my children were growing up. I wasn't helping in my husband's dental office anymore. We had some commercial property that sold and I just had more time to write, and because of that I was able to write a book. So that's where I am today.

Speaker 1: 7:40

I love that. Well, when we started working together, you're talking about this book and I'm like, oh wow, you're, you know, must be a. You know, some people are just really good at writing. And you said, oh no, I don't know any grammar, I don't worry about punctuation, wait what? Ok, if you can do that and write a book, I guess I can go ahead and write my book. It really inspired me to get get on my writing game, because I think that holds me back just a little bit.

Speaker 1: 8:11

Okay, let's unpack your story just a little bit. So I love how you you say you had a secret, you carried a secret in something in nursing school was kind of the catalyst to getting some healing for you, and you found a layer of healing. Don't you feel like that? When we are healing, it does happen, in layers, it does happen, and then something there's a bump in the road or a disruption, or a new life, a whole new life stage. Motherhood is a whole new life stage nobody can prepare us for and it's you know who? Do you know Susie Larson? You familiar with her Very vaguely.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Yeah, Okay, I love Susie Larson, I love her, I love her, but she calls it. We have these layers of healing and then there's an unearthing and the earth, actually in the earth itself there is unearthing, to where fresh dirt comes to the forefront of earth and breaks through. And that's almost what happens. We get a layer of healing and then there's an unearthing, and then we get to heal even more and then there's a more, there's more unearthing. It's just a process and I love that you've gone through your healing process and then you're like okay, now I'm ready to write this book. And so tell us a little bit about the book and who it's for, and a little bit about, maybe, the characters, if you would.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Sure, sure, okay. So the title Crisis of Faith is about the protagonist, or the main character, faith, and it starts with her in a safe house and there is a girl running from human trafficking. It's a very intense chapter, but it's meant to be intense, so it'll bring the reader in and make them want to keep reading. And so, as she's walking, this girl that comes in from human trafficking, she's literally running into their door. Her name is Hope, and as Faith is counseling Hope, then Hope asks Faith, how do you know so much? You're not much older than I am. And so, then, the middle chapters of the book are about Faith's life and how Faith experienced childhood sexual abuse, not in a human trafficking area, but in a moment in her home, from someone she knew.

Speaker 2: 10:41

So in my own life, I've, I was, I was, I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and I've had so many people open up to me and tell me that their uncle, step grandfather, babysitter, cousin.

Speaker 2: 10:58

I cannot tell you the people who have opened up to me about my story, when I am willing to be vulnerable than they are too, and so my, my heart is for these women to heal.

Speaker 2: 11:11

So I, my passion, is for young women, but really women at any age, because so many women haven't healed from their childhood trauma, whether it be sexual abuse or a narcissistic father or an illness that had them in the hospital for a long time when they weren't able to see their family. So I've just had a lot of women that have opened up to me about their stories and I love one-on-one, I love sitting with women eye to eye and hearing their stories, and it has just. It just fills me, fills my spirit, to know that God gave us each other to share our stories and just to listen. And sometimes when we just sit and listen to other people's stories, it releases something from us that we've just held on to for so long and it frees us. It's truly like a butterfly coming out of the cocoon. It just frees us to fly into God's will for our life. That, for whatever reason, we've believed that our story didn't matter, but your story does matter.

Speaker 1: 12:22

Oh, my goodness, that's so good. You know the saying hurt people, hurt people, and I believe with all of my heart that healed people healed people. And God's called us to an abundant life. He's called us, he's come to give us life and abundant life, life to the full. And part of living to me wholeheartedly is, whatever the experiences and circumstances and failures and things done to us and things that we've done that we regret, we can still, in that supernatural economy of Jesus Christ, live a life to the full. And you know, I'm so excited about your message and about this book because here's a little challenge I can't help it my coach is coming out of me right now is if you're feeling bound up in some area of your life and it's not lining up to this abundant life that Jesus says that we have. There's a gap, and that's the gap that you got to go work on. Is that right? Or am I right? You're right, yeah, because he's called us to a thriving life, no matter the circumstances, that we can access peace and joy, no matter what.

Speaker 1: 13:32

I was stuck, I went. I'm not a um, I haven't had sexual abuse, that's not my story. But I do have a big story too, and I was so stuck for so many years, and it's painful. It's painful to feel like your soul is suffocating. And what do you do about it? When you don't have the skills, you don't have the next step, or it's you just have learned that this is just going to be my life? This is just the way it is. This is just life. Right, right, just more. There's more. God's called you to more. So I just love that your book is a catalyst for healing for young adults, but I also know from just you alluded to it a little bit there there's so much that you do just because you were vulnerable, you were willing to share your story that so many other people have started to find freedom to because they're like okay, well, let me tell you about mine. And you've sat through women breaking free too and getting to the other side.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Yes, it is a beautiful thing. It's beautiful to see.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Yes, it is. It is Okay. Carrie tell us how can number one I'm going to put all of your information in the show notes. So, guys, we're going to tell you a little bit about her book, and right now, at the time of recording, is under pre launch, but it will be in the world very soon. So we're going to tell you a little bit about number one, how to connect with Carrie, but also how you can go buy your books.

Speaker 1: 15:03

That is plural Go buy your books. I want you to think about your nieces. I want you to think about all of the young people in your life and young adults in your life. Christmas is coming up and what we can do is the more books that we buy and the more reviews that we leave on Carrie's book. It can help get it pushed up I mean, hopefully, like a New York Time bestseller list or something like that and it really matters how many people buy it pre-sale and right away. That's very, very, very important. The reviews are very, very, very important. So, Carrie, can you tell us a little bit about how we can access this, get a hold of this and help you?

Speaker 2: 15:43

Sure, the book is ready for pre-order now on Amazon. You can just Google Carrie Watts Our Crisis of Faith It'll pop up, and there you go, and then my website is my name. And there you go, and then my website is my name, kerrywattscom, and you can join my newsletter. You can see that I'm on Instagram at Kerry Watts Writes. I'm on Facebook as Kerry On or my name. So there's, I'm on TikTok. Even Just Google Kerry Watts, I'm on there.

Speaker 2: 16:12

So yeah, I try to post yeah, all the places, but I try to post about something daily. I try to oh, yeah, all the places, um, but I try to post about something daily. I love to encourage, I love to support you, I want to help you in any way I can. Um, but yes, very exciting it's very exciting.

Speaker 1: 16:28

It's very exciting. So it's Carrie, it's c-a-r-r-i-e watts is w-a-R-R-I-E Watts is W-A-T-T-S. And you can check the show notes and you can click on there. And I do encourage you to buy multiple copies of the book and go back as soon as you get it and as soon as you've read it and leave her a review. And, carrie, we're just. I'm so proud of you. I'm so excited about all of the people that are gonna be set free. I just, in my mind, I see the captive set free and I just see an energy, I see your energy being poured into them and just, people like you got set free and you wrote a book. And how many people this is going to impact. Can you imagine all of the ways that the people that are going to get freed up by reading this book and whatever they're going to do to heal, heal people, heal people. So all this is going to be such a catalyst for change for so many lives. I'm so proud of you, my friend. You are awesome. You are amazing.

Speaker 2: 17:30

Thank you, amy, you're so sweet. I love your energy. I love it.

Speaker 1: 17:35

Thank you. All right, you guys will listen. Do, do us a solid. Do us a solid. Um. If you found value from this, this podcast or this YouTube, please share it and screenshot it. Tag us both on Instagram stories. We will repost you. Um, just want to say thank you for being here, Thank you for coming back week after week on here and, all right, have an amazing day. Bye, everybody.