Catholic Evangelista, Sonja Corbitt

How long will you carry the burden of that "precious"?

In this episode, I use symbols from "The Lord of the Rings" and the prophecies of Ezekiel's Messianic temple to illustrate the transformed soul uniting and ruling the inner kingdom with Christ at the cornerstone of the heart. I thought "It’s a Wonderful Life" had closed the series. Then a dream and an illumination landed on the piece I had left hanging: the one wound to rule them all. Our precious.
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Tolkien illustrates the union of masculine and feminine in the soul and the union of the divided kingdom through a man and a woman: Aragorn is the healer-king returning from exile. Éowyn is the feminine part that receives and cultivates the garden ruined by war. Frodo carries the ring all the way to the fire and still reaches for it. This is not a movie recap. It's the whole, healed, transformed soul, Ezekiel’s temple, the water flowing from the temple court, the river that makes the Dead Sea live, and the habit you cannot put down until the end.
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I share how self-medication is the last to heal, because it was forged with the earliest wound at the cornerstone. You allow God to peel the persona, the projections, the shadows away, and you finally meet the little girl or the little boy who has carried the shame, the rejection, the abandonment. Jesus waits in every layer. He is waiting there. The ring has to go back into the fire from which it was forged, and you do not get to look noble while you wrestle it.
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The message of this story, and of this series, is that the cornerstone wound does not disappear. It becomes a scar from which His Divine Mercy flows from the temple of the heart, irrigating everything it touches. Compulsion loses its grip when the precious is returned to the fire from which it was forged. The true king occupies the house, the garden is tended, and your humanity gets a gray ship. Healing is not control. It is water from the threshold of the temple, uniting and rightly ruling what the ego never could.
See this beloved, classic story with new eyes.
 

Thank you with all my heart to my newest Friends of the Show, Carolyn McG; Lynn V; Caiti M; and Diane M, for loving and lifting me. Friends of the Show get all Premium Content.

New Premium Content coming soon!

L | Listen (Receive the Word via audio or video.)




O | Observe (Connect the passage to your life and recent events.)

Is it surprising that Jesus wants to unite and rule the kingdom of your heart with you? Do you find it helpful or discouraging to know your deepest heart-wound is not erased, anymore than Jesus' wounds were erased? What do you want to say to the Lord about that?

V | Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.)

Remembering that He loves you and that you are in His presence, talk to God about the particulars of your O – Observe step. You may want to write your reflections in your LOVE the Word® journal. Or, get a free journal page and guide in the right-hand margin.

E | Entrust (Rest in the Word.)

St. Joseph, Patron of Dreams and "Master Dreamer," with the Holy Spirit, guard and illumine the contents of my sleep, I pray, so I that I may hear God speak as you did.  Amen +
 
And if you're ready to throw your precious into the fires of Mount Doom, join me this weekend for the Love Heals Retreat, September 25-27👇



at this incredible location...



...and get some real, practical, proven-to-work tools for growing out of addiction and self-medication.
 
 
Connect
Step back from soul-sucking social media, and join me (click here) in the Catholic Evangelista community, where you can connect with me directly and with a flourishing community of help, support, and deeper healing. 
Transcript
Transcripts and CC are now provided automatically within both the audio and video players.

I mean, is yours really a wonderful life?

In this final episode, I use It’s a Wonderful Life to look at shadows, archetypes, and what Jung called individuation. The Bible calls that same work sanctification, purification, and healing. Benedict XVI said the entire content of redemption, fully understood, is healing of the whole person.
While The Wizard of Oz was a youthful hero story of departure and return, this movie is a midlife life review. George Bailey looks back at the life he did not get to live, all the dreams that went unfulfilled, and the ordinary life and accomplishments he judged as too small. That crash of unlived expectation is the story of the film, and it happens to all of us.
I share how God invited me to dream big as a young adult, fulfilled those dreams, and then invited me to dream big again, so that preparing this episode became my own life review. I saw residual masculine shadow and ambition I had thought was completely healed. I saw diminishment of all my accomplishments with the Holy Spirit over my lifetime. The illumination was deep, but it was not a tornado.
If we cooperate with Scripture and with our dreams, the process can rearrange us without destroying everything.
The message of It’s a Wonderful Life, and of this series, is that Jesus in the self is already in the ordinary choices of your life. He was there, then, and He is waiting for you to find Him there, now. A midlife crisis or a painful life review is not proof that your relationship with God is false.
It's an invitation to a deeper stage.
 

Thank you with all my heart to my newest Friends of the Show, Carolyn McG; Lynn V; Caiti M; and Diane M, for loving and lifting me. Friends of the Show get all Premium Content.

New Premium Content coming soon!

L | Listen (Receive the Word via audio or video.)




O | Observe (Connect the passage to your life and recent events.)

Ever been ready to jump off a bridge? What choices have you made that you dismissed as small, but were actually accomplishments that you did not take time to celebrate? What would celebrating those, now, look like? What do you want to say to the Lord about that?

V | Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.)

Remembering that He loves you and that you are in His presence, talk to God about the particulars of your O – Observe step. You may want to write your reflections in your LOVE the Word® journal. Or, get a free journal page and guide in the right-hand margin.

E | Entrust (Rest in the Word.)

St. Joseph, Patron of Dreams and "Master Dreamer," with the Holy Spirit, guard and illumine the contents of my sleep, I pray, so I that I may hear God speak as you did.  Amen +
 
And here's something I found that I want to share with you...
Click!  

 
Connect
Step back from soul-sucking social media, and join me (click here) in the Catholic Evangelista community, where you can connect with me directly and with a flourishing community of help, support, and deeper healing. 
Transcript
Transcripts and CC are now provided automatically within both the audio and video players.

What if the tornado ripping through your life right now is an invitation to finally come home?
 
We're exploring The Wizard of Oz as both an archetypal dream and a powerful picture of the pop quizzes God allows in our lives and the healing offered to us in them.
We look at Kansas as our personal, limited conscious world; the Wicked Witch and the Wizard as devouring complexes; the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion as parts we must befriend; the poppy field as self-medication; and the Ruby Slippers as the permanent grace of Christ already present at the cornerstone of the self.
Using the familiar story of Dorothy’s journey, I show how the movie mirrors recent readings in the Church and the purgatory of integration we all face: confronting shadow complexes, reclaiming disowned parts of ourselves, withdrawing projections, and discovering that the home we have been searching for has been with us all along.
Tune in and let the Scriptures and this beloved tale show you how to navigate your yellow brick road, all the way home.

Thank you with all my heart to my newest Friends of the Show, Carolyn McG; Lynn V; Caiti M; and Diane M, for loving and lifting me. Friends of the Show get all Premium Content

L | Listen (Receive the Word via audio or video.)


O | Observe (Connect the passage to your life and recent events.)
What is your tornado? What is the upheaval calling you beyond the familiar? And what would it mean to finally walk your own yellow brick road all the way home? What do you want to say to the Lord about that?
V | Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.)
Remembering that He loves you and that you are in His presence, talk to God about the particulars of your O – Observe step. You may want to write your reflections in your LOVE the Word® journal. Or, get a free journal page and guide in the right-hand margin.
E | Entrust (Rest in the Word.)
St. Joseph, Patron of Dreams and "Master Dreamer," with the Holy Spirit, guard and illumine the contents of my sleep, I pray, so I that I may hear God speak as you did.  Amen +
Love Heals. Learn More.
And if you're ready to stop sleeping through your life in the poppy field of self-medication, join me for the upcoming How Love Heals Self-Medication Retreat, August 14-16.👇
At least take a look...
 
...and get some real, practical, proven-to-work tools for growing out of addiction and self-medication.
 
Connect
Step back from soul-sucking social media, and join me (click here) in the Catholic Evangelista community, where you can connect with me directly and with a flourishing community of help, support, and deeper healing. 
Transcript
Transcripts and CC are now provided automatically within both the audio and video playe

And so did everyone around me. 
But just like Peter was delivered in Acts 12 from the tyrant king Herod, his 'two' jailers and 'two' chains (shadows, complexes, and contradictions), I thought it was a dream when the 'gate' to symbolism opened with no effort at all, and I discovered that the symbols in our addictions, dreams, and Scripture reveal a more direct, even 'miraculous,' angelic way to deliverance from self-medication.
In Episode 6 of the Dreams series, I offer the symbolism in self-medication and addiction, revealing the hidden thing you're really searching for underneath—not relief from the superficial moral failure or bad habit, but the shadows that reveal where your heart is still wounded and yearning to heal. At the core lies a universal wound: emotional unavailability and the deep deficit of love it leaves behind. But the way this wound is expressed is specific to each of us and what we're really grasping for.
I unpack the ten most common forms of self-medication—including alcohol, food, caffeine, work, internet and gaming, pot, shopping, nicotine, pornography, gambling, and more—and reveal the symbolic longing behind each one. Whether it's spiritual thirst, soul hunger, fear of vulnerability, boredom and escape from reality, or the pursuit of counterfeit transcendence, every compulsion points toward a specific deeper need.
Drawing on a client's powerful dream example and Scripture—especially Jesus as the True Vine—I show how these behaviors are unconscious attempts to soothe a love wound while bypassing the difficult but saving work of integration. Lasting freedom doesn't come through willpower. You know that by now, right? It arrives gently and luminously, in withdrawing projections, cultivating the Good Mother (unconditional love) and the Good Father (order, encouragement, and meaning), and meeting Christ in the abandoned places within us—the places we avoid, reject, or despise, but where He has been waiting all along.
If you're still languishing in a self-medication prison, wondering why you keep reaching for things that never truly satisfy... 
... this episode is a powerful roadmap to understanding your inner world and cooperating with God's invitation and power for authentic healing, freedom, and wholeness.

Thank you with all my heart to my newest Friends of the Show, Antonia R, Susan O, and Kelly S, for loving and lifting me. Friends of the Show get all Premium Content

L | Listen (Receive the Word via audio or video.)


O | Observe (Connect the passage to your life and recent events.)
Have you noticed how your dreams+Scripture tell you the absolute truth about the path to freedom and healing from self-medication? Do you believe it can really be as simple as withdrawing your projections? What do you want to say to the Lord about that?
V | Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.)
Remembering that He loves you and that you are in His presence, talk to God about the particulars of your O – Observe step. You may want to write your reflections in your LOVE the Word® journal. Or, get a free journal page and guide in the right-hand margin.
E | Entrust (Rest in the Word.)
St. Joseph, Patron of Dreams and "Master Dreamer," with the Holy Spirit, guard and illumine the contents of my sleep, I pray, so I that I may hear God speak as you did.  Amen +
Love Heals. Learn More.

 
Connect
Join me (click here) in the Sacred Healing community for our Masterclass and Consultation Group coaching calls, healing prayer livestreams, monthly Bible studies, LOVE the Word® takeaways, a healing masterclass and other courses, a dynamic phone app, and a flourishing community to help you find help, support, and experience deeper healing. 
Transcript
Transcripts and CC are now provided automatically within both the audio and video player

Because it is.
The people you're trying to get love from are wounded, just like you. But the problem is not that you're not loved. It's that you're expending creative energy desperately grasping at it.
Wounded love is the root of self-medication and other toxic behaviors and relationships. But even in the best relationships - such as with God Himself - others feel distant, often when we need them the most.
Why does God allow that? Why does He feel distant when He knows that love is the primary human need? And how are we supposed to get our need for love met, when everyone around us is emotionally unavailable to us?
This deficit of love that we all share is often formed in childhood through emotionally distant or unavailable parents, and gets unconsciously projected onto God, our spouses, and others — creating cycles of chasing connection, scanning for approval, self-abandonment, and self-medication.
Using dream symbols (including the warehouse, little boy, and sunflower from Ep 4), and Scripture, I'll walk you through through the painful yet liberating process of recognizing this pattern, withdrawing projections, and beginning to integrate the masculine and feminine (animus/anima) with some practical tools.
True healing moves us from earning love to receiving and giving it freely — without inner collapse or compulsion (pop quizzes). This episode offers profound insight into why so many of us feel unseen or disconnected even in good relationships, and how God uses pop quizzes, dreams, and Scripture to lead us into deeper wholeness and authentic love.
If you're feeling unseen or disconnected, even in good relationships, I bet you need some new tools for coping.

Thank you with all my heart to my newest Friend of the Show, Tessa W, for loving and lifting me. Friends of the Show get all Premium Content!

LOVE the Word® is a Bible study method based on Mary’s own practice: lectio without the Latin. Get the book based on Sonja’s method in the right margin, How to Pray Like Mary.  
L | Listen (Receive the Word via audio or video.)


O | Observe (Connect the passage to your life and recent events.)
What's your usual reaction to reaching for connection, but not being met? How have the daily readings and your dreams been speaking to you about that? What do you want to say to the Lord, now?
V | Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.)
Remembering that He loves you and that you are in His presence, talk to God about the particulars of your O – Observe step. You may want to write your reflections in your LOVE the Word® journal. Or, get a free journal page and guide in the right-hand margin.
E | Entrust (Rest in the Word.)
St. Joseph, Patron of Dreams and "Master Dreamer," with the Holy Spirit, guard and illumine the contents of my sleep, I pray, so I that I may hear God speak as you did.  Amen +
Love Heals. Learn More.

Connect
Join me (click here) in the Sacred Healing community for our Masterclass and Consultation Group coaching calls, healing prayer livestreams, monthly Bible studies, LOVE the Word® takeaways, a healing masterclass and other courses, a dynamic phone app, and a flourishing community to help you find help, support, and experience deeper healing. 
Transcript
Transcripts and CC are now provided automatically within both the audio and video player