Join host Twanna Henderson on ‘T Time Spiritual Conversations for, with, and about women’ as she engages in an enlightening conversation with Mindy Caliguire, co-founder and president of Soul Care. Mindy shares her personal journey from pain and brokenness to discovering the importance of soul care, a practice she advocates for individuals, especially women and leaders in ministry.

Want to get connected with Mindy and her ministry?

Visit https://www.soulcare.com

Transcript

Twanna Henderson: Welcome to T Time Spiritual Conversations for, with and about women. I’m your host, Twanna Henderson and as always, I want to remind you to like this broadcast and to definitely share it with someone in your life. Well, I am so excited about our guest on today. Our guest is Mindy Caliguire. Mindy is the co founder and president of Soul Care, which is a ministry that partners with individuals, churches, organizations, and thought leaders. She previously served in executive leadership at Glue, which is an organization that helps ministry leaders scale their impact through technology. Mindy also served with the Willow Creek Association, now known as Global Leadership Network.

She speaks and advises into organizations including Compassion International. ECFA, National Christian Foundation, and many churches and ministries across the U. S. Mindy’s books include Discovering Soul Care, Spiritual Friendship, Stir, and her newest book that will be released this September is Ignite Your Soul.

Mindy, welcome to T Time.

Mindy Caliguire: Thank you, Twanna. I’m so delighted to be with you, and I love the name of the, of the whole podcast. This is a great name, T Time. Like that’s so many layers of that.

Twanna Henderson: Absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you for agreeing to be with us on today. I know we have talked and had conversations and just so excited about just delving into some things on today and who better to talk about soul care than the soul care, I’m going to call you the soul care expert.

Mindy Caliguire: I’m certainly passionate about it.

Twanna Henderson: I know that you are, and it’s something that, you know, that you are just really good at. And you know, we, that’s a term that we really get tossed around a lot, soul care. And I wonder if we really even know what it means. So let’s kind of start there and, and talk about what is soul care.

Mindy Caliguire: Yeah. Yeah. I love, love that question. Love, love dealing with this topic. And usually when I, when I’m talking about what is it, I like to answer it on like kind of three levels. for me, soul care has been a way of life that came out of a season of great pain and brokenness in the midst of some, church planting and being a pastor’s wife and, serving in leadership, and out of the wreckage, God just graciously led me on a new path of learning how to attend to the wellbeing of my own soul as a first order of priority, which really wouldn’t have been on my radar prior to that.

So soul care for me is a way of life. It’s about building in the practices, relationships, rhythms that keep me connected to God in real time. In the midst of daily life. So it’s a way of life for me personally but over the now many years since then, soul care has also become a message that I feel very compelled to help people wake up to the same reality of the centrality of their soul that is often even in very devoted Christian leadership and ministry is not talked about enough. I would say you’re right, it’s starting to kind of bubble up, but we haven’t really had a lot of solid kind of thinking about what does this mean and why is it important? And so I feel really compelled by this as a message.

So to me, it’s a way of life. It’s a message. And then thirdly, now soul care is an emerging entity. We have a team of people who are all working with me shoulder to shoulder, trying to figure out how do we come alongside organizations? How do we come alongside leaders? What kinds of courses could we create or resources or year round journeys, spiritual direction and coaching and a ton of things.

So that’s kind of my answer to what is soul care. It’s, it’s my own way of life. And I think a way of life that God invites each and every single one of us into, it’s a message I feel compelled about. And it’s an organization that’s kind of growing and taking shape. Some people who are experts in business, I know you have a lot of different backgrounds

Twanna, that hats that you wear. it’s almost like a 27 year old startup because it’s been around for a long time, but we’re still, it was never my full time focus until a couple of years ago.

 So that’s what soul care is.

Twanna Henderson: Okay. I think that’s an excellent answer. And, you know, you talked about it coming out of your pain and brokenness.

I did not know that you were a pastor’s wife or church planter’s wife because, you know, I am as well.

Mindy Caliguire: I know you are.

Twanna Henderson: So, so I did not know. Well, yeah, you, you have a lot of pain and brokenness.

But let’s talk about that. Let’s kind of talk about that a little bit. I mean, not necessarily the pain and brokenness unless you choose to, but how you actually got involved in the work of soul care.

Mindy Caliguire: Yeah. I don’t ever mind sharing some of the, the pain, because I think in the end it gives glory to God.

It’s not glorifying tragedy. It’s saying, even in our darkest hours, when we feel there is no hope, and, and many pastors, you know, pastors, wives, women in ministry in particular, we can find ourselves in some very isolated situations. And. The more isolated we are, the more frankly at risk we are. It’s, it’s just, and this was 20 some years ago, nevermind a pandemic and all the other things that have been quite isolating to us, in leadership in recent years.

So for me, Yeah, I just, I was in a world of hurt, but you know, every Sunday I’m singing “It is Well with My Soul” because it is well with my soul and I’m saved and I didn’t have a way of thinking about whether my soul was actually okay or not, even if it’s saved. So. That those, you know, I’m happy to, if you want to romp around in any of that history, I’m happy to share it. But, just for women listening, if you’re a pastor’s wife, if you’re out in the middle of an isolating circumstance, even if you’re surrounded by people and people who probably do love you, you can feel very alone and, and the Lord is with you in that. but it can be hard to access the sense of God’s nearness anyway.

So your question was more about how am I, how I’ve been brought into communicating this message. Yeah. Yeah. You know, here’s the kind of fun thing. I’ve been talking about a little bit more lately. the more you take care of your soul and resolve, frankly, to only live out of the overflow of what God’s doing in your life,

and it’s almost hard to imagine that when you’re in a place of really hard deficit, but you do get to a place where your own soul’s vitality is restored and the Lord is, you know, activating all of your natural gifting and things like that. And it’s coming out of overflow rather That’s sort of strident,

oh my gosh, I got to make all this happen feeling. And when that happens, God just started open. When it happened for me, God just started opening doors to me to help bring this message to other people. We started off creating a little journaling resource that is still a free download on our website. Even to today, this has gone into the stores all over the country.

It’s been a free download for, Oh, the better part of a decade or more now. And it’s just called “Write For Your Soul”. And it was just a little, a little guide on how to use a journal as an invitation to self-reflection as a way to care for your soul. And, I mean, Twanna from there, God just kept giving me other opportunities to create resources or experiences or just to share my story, which oddly enough sometimes would be helpful to people.

So I kind of came into it, I guess, out of health, out of just, out of God saying, Hey, go talk to this person, listen to this person’s story, that kind of stuff.

Twanna Henderson: You know, so often, we don’t share our, our stories and don’t really realize how important it is to share our stories and, and how much we are alike.

I think when we share our stories, we realize that we are so much more alike than we are different. And, and just having that freedom to be able to share our stories, what would you say are some of the biggest barriers to people really taking care of their souls?

Mindy Caliguire: Yeah. I mean, one for sure is that it’s not even on their radar.

Like it’s hard to be attentive to taking care of something that you didn’t really even know. It’s like, if, imagine if your car had some like major part that everything depended on and you were driving it for 25 years, 30 years, and all of a sudden that part stopped working. And you’re like, wait, why did no one tell me that I had to pay attention to the thing?

And you know, we, we spend a lot of time and rightly so, attending to things that are central to something functioning. Like if something needs to function well, then we got to make sure we have access to power and heat and whatever. In the domain of the soul, in most spiritual contexts that I grew up in, and I think it’s true of many people, the only time we talked about the human soul was with reference to its eternal destiny.

So souls were either lost or found, they were saved or unsaved, but we didn’t have a way, at least I didn’t have a way of thinking about, Oh my goodness, my soul. It’s my life. It, you know, biblically understood your soul is not some like inert little thing that gets a Jesus bumper sticker on it. It’s actually what holds together all the dimensions of your personhood and as it goes with the soul so it goes with your whole life. And. That’s not, that’s not how I was taught to think about it. And so I think that’s one of the biggest reasons people, we have a hard time caring for our soul. And so if it’s just like an optional thing that like, if you’ve got nothing better to do with your time, no woman in ministry has never gotten anything, nothing better to do with their time.

Twanna Henderson: Right.

Mindy Caliguire: Right. It’s like, kids need this, family needs this, husband needs that, ministry needs this. Attending to your own wellbeing will just keep dropping further and further and further down that list unless you have a rationale or reason to reprioritize it. And I, so anyway, I think that’s a lot of it is we don’t have any awareness, but even once we do, you know, the pressures of life can be pretty demanding. It’s, it’s very loud. And, and so like sometimes our only discipleship or ways to take care of the soul that we, we learned growing up where we’ll just read your Bible and pray, have a quiet time.

And we haven’t really broadened our sort of the aperture, our view of life with God to a much more comprehensive way that our soul can stay alive to God in the midst of things.

And, and, and the dark secret, like hopefully nobody will mind if I say this, but like you can burn through a 45 minute quiet time and never have your soul actually open up to God.

Nobody told us that nobody told me that.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. And so your mind is all over the place. You’re thinking about what you have to do and you’re all this kind of stuff,

Mindy Caliguire: Right! And, and, and the, the discomfort that can be learned, we learned to be comfortable with the discomfort of just resting your soul in God’s care and he can do whatever he wants.

He can speak through scripture or through a journal or through silence or whatever it is. Or walking in nature or the conversation with a friend, all of these things can be ways that we stay alive to God, but sometimes are sort of what counts as time with God was, was just kind of a pretty narrow list that can get a little stale and not helpful.

I’m not saying that obviously time in scripture is always a good thing, but when people start getting into burnout and we’ve heard many of their stories, I don’t know how to say that you can read scripture, your head can be engaged with it, but it doesn’t refresh.

Twanna Henderson: Hmm.

Mindy Caliguire: And that’s a very scary place for us to be because we’re like, well, now what?

This was the only thing I knew sort of work. And so we have to find new, fresh ways, even of engaging in scripture. We have to find new ways of being with God, if we’re going to be able to overcome the resistances that, you know, we were talking about, like, what are, what are some of the barriers? Well, maybe we don’t know some new ways of being in God’s care, resting in his presence. so priority prioritization is one sort of ways to do this is another. Those, those I think are some pretty common barriers that I encounter with people.

[00:14:19] Twanna Henderson: So would it be fair to say that just all of the distractions that we have, all of the different things that we encounter, all of the things that we prioritize, you know, all of those things that, cause us to put our time and our attention and our heart, you know, in all these different places so that we’re not, attentive to our soul.

Is there a difference between soul care and self care?

Mindy Caliguire: I think there is. I think there is, at least in how it’s generally understood. If you really pushed me on the theological, I, I might, you know, I might, I might say it differently, but generally speaking, when we talk about self care in our culture, it’s like a bubble bath at the end of the day, it’s making sure you’re eating nutritious foods.

It’s, it’s getting out to do fun things and making sure you’re laughing and it’s just, it’s, it’s sort of whole person well being, that I think is important. I think God absolutely cares about, but one friend of mine, she said, I could have a bunch of bubble baths and never actually be talking to God.

Yeah. And that’s what starts pushing us over into what is soul care. What’s distinct about soul care? And to me, soul care is anything I’m intentional about placing myself, in a, in a, in a circumstance or a posture of awareness of what God’s doing and saying in my life. And then responsive responsiveness to it.

So any spiritual practice, anything I’m intentional about that carves out that time and space to pay attention to and be responsive to the ongoing work of God in our life. Like we’re not inventing it. God is the one who’s always at work, but we can be responsive to it or not. And so that’s how I would think about the differences.

Self care also really good and important. Soul care, I will say is the deeper driver of overall guidance that we want to receive from God, even on what would be healthy self care routines. Well, maybe the Lord has some ideas about that that we could learn from.

Twanna Henderson: So would you say, or is it fair to say that women in particular have a hard time with soul care?

Mindy Caliguire: Twanna, I wish this weren’t the case, but yes, I, I really do. I think all people struggle with it. our, self reliance is sort of the opposite of living out of soul care. So I think we all have a strong human propensity to self reliance. It’s uncomfortable to live as a dependent being. but I find that women in particular struggle with, feeling permission to take care of themselves and it’s pretty deeply ingrained.

Even if, even if somebody around you tells you, Oh, well, yeah, yeah, of course you should do that. If, if you can’t sort of let yourself off the hook of making sure the laundry is done, making sure everything else is done, making sure all the things are done. And then you’re sort of the lowest person on the, on the list.

I just find that it’s a pretty common mentality for women. And, and in Christian circles, you know, it is both our desire and often a bit of our identity in relationships that we’re the helper. We’re the one that, you know, as long as there’s any other need, the helper springs to action and that is, you know, certainly I think everybody probably knows the word used in Genesis of, of Eve being created as the helper is the same word that’s used of God as the helper of Israel.

It’s, it was certainly not, a pejorative or, inferior word and, and yet it’s part of our identity, part of human identity to serve and to love and to give sacrificially to help. But I don’t think we are supposed to serve and give and sacrifice and help in such a way that our own souls start dying. Yeah.

And that’s what ends up happening. But for women, it’s hard. It’s, it’s pretty ingrained in our culture, that as long as there’s any need sitting around unmet, we’re sort of supposed to be on.

Twanna Henderson: We’ll meet it.

Mindy Caliguire: Yeah.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy Caliguire: Go get it.

Twanna Henderson: So then, what are some practical ways, I mean, I know there are people listening to this and saying, yeah, I agree with that.

Practically then, how do I, how do I care for my soul in the midst of daily life?

Mindy Caliguire: Yeah. I have a three part thing that is always my answer to this, and it has lots of room to explore what works for you and your context. But these three things are really helpful. And if you can bear them in mind, and the first is, I just call it, it’s a page, a person in a plan.

You need a page, a person in a plan. The page is like a journal, the invitation to reflection and friends, a lot of times we really do become those human doings and we don’t know how to stop and just be a human being and really reflect on who am I, what am I concerned about? Where is God at work in my life?

There’s a bazillion questions you can ask yourself. And it’s valuable even from a neurological perspective to physically write those things down. What, what am I learning? What am I seeing? What am I praying about? Using a journal as a place to pray. That’s the page. It can take a lot of forms, but the page, and we have a ton of resources on our website that are like just free downloads for journaling resources.

The second one is a person and Twanna, we, this is the one area that I think women might have a little bit of a superpower, in terms of our, relational capacities. Generally speaking, these are general characteristics, but our ability to draw people’s story out, our ability to ask and mean meaningful questions about how people are like spiritual friendships and relationships that have at their core, not just hanging out and having fun, but like, how is this relationship helping me on my journey with God? And how am I helping my sister, my friend with her journey with God? The person one of the page person in a plan is, is really recognizing that intentionality around friendships or could be a therapist, a counselor, a spiritual director, coach, anybody, but we have got to have

a safe, what we call a safe third space, which is a space where you can be perfectly honest about what’s really going on in your life without fear of judgment or recrimination or shame or anything. It’s a certain kind of relationship that still has an eye to where is God at work and how are we being responsive to it.

Oh my goodness. One of the most transformational, practices is those kinds of relationships. So the page, the person invitation to reflection invitation to connection. And the third one is a, is a plan. It’s kind of like, what’s your intentionality around a soul care plan? Not, you know, for like the next 10 years, but like maybe the next 90 days, what would you want your level of connection with God to be like 90 days from now.

And what are some ways that the Lord may be inviting you into just some, maybe even baby steps of intentionality with that? Would you incorporate a bit of silence into your day? Would you, do an audio experience of scripture that helps open you up to God’s word in a different way than just sitting in on your chair with your Bible?

Like, What are the different things you could be intentional? Do you need a half day of solitude someday? Do you need to just get away? carve out some time, have, some guidance for it, or just do it on your own. I know for me, in ministry, especially in the pastor wife days, when I was trying to get healthier, I mean, it felt like it took an act of Congress to get someone to be able to take care of my kids so I could get away just for half a day, like once a month, but it was worth the negotiation to get to that because

I needed to get to a space where I wasn’t on and I could just be with God, even if it was for a half day. Like if you can take a week, do, if you can take two days, do, but if all you can get is a half a day, once a month, do that because you need time, but you got to plan it. It won’t just, you won’t just float into this, it’s going to take some intentionality.

Twanna Henderson: Now I wanna go back to person because I know one of your books is spiritual friendships. Mm-Hmm. . Are friendships vital to our soul?

Mindy Caliguire: Yes. Did you say why?

Twanna Henderson: Are they?

Mindy Caliguire: I think they’re indispensable. I, I believe, I believe each of us is at, is the level of risk for burnout, dropout flame out in our lives is directly proportional to how isolated we are.

Twanna Henderson: Mm-Hmm. .

Mindy Caliguire: I’m sorry, I think even more isolating being the pastor is the pastor’s wife. Because it’s very tricky now, God willing, someday, maybe not too far in the future, we’ll have some new norms around all this stuff. But as it exists right now, pastor’s wives are usually some of the loneliest people in a church.

I know, a pastor’s wife while I was in my total, you know, everything was burning kind of stage.

A woman who had had a very bad run in, in her former church in a city in Texas, her husband and she had moved and in the year prior to the reassignment to a new place. And it was such a painful implosion for them in their prior assignment through their denomination that she, she knew she needed friends, but she was praying for a year for God to open a door for a friendship who in her words would be a ministry peer, somebody wasn’t part of her church, somebody who did understand the demands and pressures of church leadership and of the calling to that kind of service.

She moved, she got assigned to a church in like our church met in a different town, but we lived in this town. She was literally the closest actual house to where I was living because it was on the other side of a park. And we began meeting weekly for prayer. Every Friday around lunchtime, she would come up like 11 o’clock in the morning and we would pray for our husbands.

We would pray for our churches, pray for our kids, pray for what was going on in our town and our community. And out of that grew such a beautiful friendship. And I believe the proximity that we had to one another was absolutely the Lord answering the cry of her heart. I didn’t even have enough wisdom to pray for that kind of a thing, but she knew what she, what she needed.

And, and a lot of, a lot of the things, I mean, most of the transformation that’s happened in my life, and it’s probably true of anyone who’s listening too, we can trace back, it’s people. It’s people who open us up to new ways of thinking about God, new ways of relating to other people. And I think that’s by God’s design.

I mean, how much, how many Bible verses tell you, you know, different ways of prayer? There’s many. How many Bible verses tell you how to engage with scripture. There’s a few. How many Bible verses talk about how we should relate to each other?

It’s kind of a lot.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Mindy Caliguire: And Henry Cloud was one of the first people, who talked about the relationships in the body of Christ was God’s plan A for transformation.

Twanna Henderson: Yep. Yep.

Mindy Caliguire: So anyway, I think, I think spiritual friendships are vital. In fact, that’s the other book. “Stir” is spiritual transformation in relationship and “Stir” was more like a strategic book for people in church leadership to be thinking about discipleship systems and how, because usually disciples, people who are trying to figure out discipleship at a church, they’re usually thinking of a content framework.

Well, first people need to learn this and then they need to learn this and then they need to. And content has its place. I’m not saying it doesn’t, but if you don’t have a vision for how people’s relational dynamics need to change as they grow, you’ll miss some of the biggest kinds of spiritual formation that I think can happen in the body of Christ.

But anyway, anyway, yeah, I think for pastors wives, women in ministry, it gets harder and harder, the more senior your role. And I believe it’s more and more essential.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. and I hope that anyone who’s listening, who’s in that space, whether a pastor’s wife or a woman in ministry serving, that can be a difficult place because, finding that peer relationship, because I think, you know, I’ve dealt with women who, have found that to be a challenge because so many times people in their lives want them to be the expert or whatever it be, whatever, as opposed to just being a regular person who has issues and flaws and concerns and all these different things and not really having permission to say, hey, I’m flawed as well. And I just, you know, need a friend.

Mindy Caliguire: Oh, I mean, I’m sure we’ve all heard horror stories about women in ministries, pastors, wives who shared a prayer request, thinking it was a safe place to talk about.

I’m not sure we have enough money to get the roof replaced and it’s leaking. And all of a sudden there’s criticism that she doesn’t have faith. The pastor doesn’t. I mean, it’s just, things get so distorted and some people want to be your friend for the wrong reasons.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Mindy Caliguire: And you got to learn who you can trust with your actual stories.

All that stuff is in that spiritual friendship book. Yeah. It,

Twanna Henderson: yeah.

[00:29:09] Mindy Caliguire: It’s not for the faint of heart, but don’t give up ladies. You need each other,

Twanna Henderson: hang in there. So Mindy, let me, this, this is so good. We can just go on and on and on. How can people get connected to the work of Soul Care today and how can they connect with you and your ministry?

Mindy Caliguire: Oh guys, we would be delighted to serve you in whatever way we can. A couple thoughts. One is join our mailing list because we put stuff out every week. That’s just an encouragement to whoever’s on that list to keep remembering to care for your soul easily forgotten, easily lost along the way. Just a gentle nudge, a reminder in your inbox.

And then we have an online community called the Soul Care Collective that’s, completely free to join, and we offer things seasonally through Lent, through Advent. We have a monthly semi silent retreat. If you can carve out three hours, we’ll help you spend some time with God. That’s all free and available on our website on that, semi, on the, Soul Care Collective. And then, we have courses with a free burnout course that’s on there that, people could find. We’re, we’re seeing more and more people in there. I think there’s even a group on the collective that’s for pastors wives now that I think about it. Yeah, we, we would just love to come alongside and serve you guys however we can and that website is soulcare.com. Yes. Yes. I probably should have said that. Yeah. Go check out soulcare.com. We’d love to have you come visit, the collective is collective.soulcare.com as all one big URL collective.soulcare.com and it’s available on a web browser and you can also use an app that we, we are using.

It’s called Mighty Network. So you can just use that. We’d love to have you there.

Twanna Henderson: Well,

Mindy Caliguire: send me a note on the collective. You can send me a little message. I’d love to say hi.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, that would be so good. and I’m so glad that you have so much information that’s free for people. So there’s always news, you know, and I want to encourage our listeners to definitely, get her books including the new book that’s coming out in September, Ignite Your Soul. So that just sounds like that’s going to be a wonderful one. Now, Mindy, I know there are people who are listening to this podcast who are on the journey of soul care. and even those who, as you said, need permission to kind of take themselves to that place of soul care.

Can you just take a moment before we end and pray for them and for all of those who are really trying to get to a place of soul health?

Mindy Caliguire: Love it. I would be honored. yeah, just join with us, join your heart with us and close your eyes if it’s safe to do so. And just remember that we are surrounded by the presence of the living God and he knows you inside and out.

He knows. He knows your heart, he knows your desires and dreams, he knows your fears, he knows, he knows everything. He knows the tears that you cry that no one else sees. So God, I pray, that in this next season, these, your beloved daughters, God, would you release them from any false narrative that says they don’t have permission.

God, we know that you give them permission. You elevated women. You went out of your way to be with them. God, would you go out of your way, even in the next 24 hours of whenever they’re listening to this, to meet with each one, let her sense your nearness, let her sense the invitation. Let her sense you saying, yes, you have permission, my daughter, take some time to rest, rest in me, rest in hope, rest in enough.

And God, we also ask that you would create new bonds between women, that there would be safe relationships that would open the floodgates of your spirit to move among us to bring great healing and hope and health.

God, for those who are just really crispy and burnt and tired and maybe giving up hope even today man, and the scripture coming to mind. Is “A bruised reed you will not break and a smoldering wick you will not put out.”

God we ask for you to breathe new life breathe fresh energies not born of strong, white knuckled resolve to go do more, but out of an invitation to allow you to restore health and life to their souls. So God, that’s our prayer. We pray that, women involved in leadership and standing alongside spouses.

In key roles, God, that they would be strengthened from the inside out, that trying to give out of a vacuum would not happen anymore, and that they would take the time and space that they need to heal and restore as you guide. But that one day, God, that there would be, an overflow of your spirit’s work in and through them. Coming out of overflow. So that’s our prayer for your people, for your women, for those who are listening. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Twanna Henderson: Amen. Well, Mindy, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been really, really, really, really good. and I’m looking forward to working with you, in the future on some things to, to help women engage in soul care.

Mindy Caliguire: Twanna, I like dreaming with you about that stuff. Absolutely. I look forward to it.

Twanna Henderson: To all of our listeners, thank you for joining us today. I’m Twanna Henderson. Be blessed of the Lord.