One of the questions I hear most often in my counseling office isn’t, “How do I stop being anxious?” or even, “How do I heal from my past?” It’s a question that sits underneath so many of the conversations I have with clients: “How do I know if this is God speaking… or if it’s just me?”

I think that’s an incredibly honest question, and if I’m being honest, I think it’s one the Church hasn’t always known how to answer well. We talk a lot about hearing God’s voice, being obedient, and following His leading (all beautiful and important things by the way). But we don’t spend much time talking about the other voices that can sound remarkably convincing: shame, anxiety, perfectionism, fear, trauma, or the inner critic we’ve carried for years. When those voices become tangled together, it can become incredibly difficult to know what’s actually coming from God.

Over the last several years, I’ve noticed a pattern in my counseling work. Whether someone comes to me because of anxiety, OCD, relationship struggles, people-pleasing, spiritual trauma, or simply feeling stuck, we often end up circling back to the same place. They describe an internal dialogue that is harsh, demanding, and relentless. It tells them they should be doing more, praying more, trying harder, or feeling differently. And somewhere along the way, they’ve assumed that because the voice feels serious, or even spiritual, it must be God.

But here’s what I’ve gently begun asking my clients: What if it isn’t?

Now, before anyone thinks I’m suggesting God doesn’t convict us, let me be clear… I absolutely believe He does. Conviction is real, and it’s a gift. But conviction and shame are not the same thing. Conviction is specific. It invites us toward restoration. Shame is global. It attacks our identity and pushes us into hiding. One draws us closer to God; the other convinces us to pull away from Him. Unfortunately, many of us have spent years confusing the two.

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate through my own healing journey, years of therapy, theological training, and sitting with hundreds of clients is that shame is incredibly deceptive. It rarely announces itself as shame. Instead, it disguises itself as responsibility. It sounds like humility. It masquerades as holiness. It convinces us that constant self-monitoring, relentless self-criticism, and never quite feeling like we’re enough are signs of spiritual maturity. The truth is, those patterns often leave us exhausted, disconnected, and wondering why our faith feels more like pressure than peace.

As both a therapist and a Christian, I’ve become deeply passionate about helping people untangle those voices, not by pulling them away from their faith, but by helping them experience it more honestly. I believe psychology and theology were never meant to compete with one another. I believe understanding how God created our minds, our bodies, and our nervous systems can actually deepen our relationship with Him, not diminish it. Sometimes what we’ve labeled as a spiritual failure is actually an anxious nervous system. Sometimes what we’ve called conviction is an old wound still asking to be healed. And sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is slow down long enough to ask better questions.

That passion is what led me to create my newest online course, Is This God… or Is This Me? Over the past several months, I’ve poured my heart into developing a resource that brings together the things I care about most: biblical truth, psychology, nervous system awareness, and the process of healing from shame without abandoning your faith. It isn’t a course about deconstructing Christianity. It’s about untangling the beliefs, fears, and internalized messages that may have become intertwined with it.

My hope isn’t simply that people leave the course with more information. Information alone rarely changes us. My hope is that they leave with greater discernment, more compassion for themselves, and a deeper sense of peace in their relationship with God. I hope they begin to recognize the difference between the voice that invites them into grace and the voice that keeps them trapped in fear. And maybe, for the first time in a long time, they’ll realize they don’t have to live under the constant pressure of getting everything right.

I genuinely can’t wait to extend this invitation to you. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering whether the voice you’ve been listening to actually sounds like Jesus, I think this conversation might be one you didn’t know you needed. My prayer is that together, we’ll discover that God’s voice has always been leading us toward connection, not condemnation.