“Suffering brings you to the end of yourself and you have to decide—do I love the Giver or do I love the gifts the most?”

That realization didn’t come easily for Kimberly Phinney.

It came after years of chasing the kinds of addictions people rarely call addictions at all—perfectionism, workaholism, people-pleasing, and the relentless drive to prove your worth. And it came after chronic illness stripped away the very things she once used to define herself and led to an unraveling.

For Kimberly, that unraveling eventually led to a nervous breakdown in her twenties. But the story didn’t stop there.

Years later she was diagnosed with severe stage-four endometriosis. What followed were multiple surgeries, catastrophic complications, sepsis, months of being bedridden, and the long process of learning how to walk again.

In a short span of time, the things that once shaped her identity—productivity, professional success, physical strength, reputation—were stripped away. What remained forced her to confront a deeper question: when suffering removes the gifts we’ve relied on, do we still love the Giver?

In this episode, Kimberly shares how perfectionism, anxiety, and eating disorders quietly shaped her early life, how chronic illness dismantled the idols she didn’t know she had built, and how suffering became the place where her faith was both tested and deepened.

If you’ve ever wrestled with perfectionism, self-reliance, the "shiny" addictions as Kimberly calls them, chronic illness, shame, or the tension between faith and suffering, this conversation is an honest look at what it means to keep trusting God when he's all you have to hold on to.

Looking for a one-stop recovery resource? Learn more about the Tyndale Life Recovery Bible here.

We explore:

— The “shiny addictions” that often hide behind success, including perfectionism, workaholism, people-pleasing, and control
— How trauma, anxiety, and identity wounds can quietly build toward a mental health crisis
— Why socially acceptable addictions can be just as destructive as substance addictions
— The devastating physical toll of severe stage-four endometriosis and chronic illness
— What happens when suffering strips away productivity, independence, and reputation
— The connection between shame, secrecy, and healing
— How chronic illness exposed the idols Kimberly did not realize she had built
— Why suffering can deepen faith instead of destroying it
— What it means to love the Giver more than the gifts

Get Kimberley's books: Of Wings and Dirt and Exalted Ground
The website: The Way Back to Ourselves
Kimberly's Substack newsletter: My Way Back
Follow her on Instagram
Follow me: @jonseidl
Order my new book, Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic
Get the Tyndale Life Recovery Bible: https://hubs.la/Q041HjWm0

Support the Show: https://www.jonseidl.com/

Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

“Everyone has a shame story.”

That’s from this week’s guest, Dr. Zoe Shaw. And she’s right. Shame isn’t reserved for the dramatic or the scandalous. It’s universal. It goes back to the garden. It hides deep. And it quietly shapes far more of our behavior than we’d like to admit.

Dr. Zoe is a licensed psychotherapist, speaker, and author of Stronger in the Difficult Places: Heal Your Relationship with Yourself by Untangling Complex Shame. Her story has been featured on the OWN Network, and her clinical work focuses on helping people untangle complex shame, break cycles of codependency, and build emotionally healthy relationships rooted in truth instead of hiding.

In this episode, we unpack what shame really is, how it forms, and why so many Christians confuse shame with holiness. Zoe shares her story of becoming pregnant at 15, being sent away to give birth in secret, and returning home carrying layers of hidden shame that shaped decades of overachievement, people-pleasing, and self-protection.

And if you’ve spent any time in recovery, you know this pattern. Shame doesn’t make you better. It makes you hide. It drives behavior underground. It convinces you that if people really knew you, they wouldn’t love you—and maybe that God wouldn’t either.

Zoe explains the difference between guilt and shame, simple shame and complex shame, and why guilt can lead to repentance, but shame leads to isolation. We talk about how complex shame snowballs over time, how overachievement can become a coping strategy, and why external validation doesn’t always dissolve what’s happening internally.

We also talk about faith. About bringing your real self—not just your cleaned-up self—to Christ. Because the gospel tells us we are loved despite our flaws and invites us out of hiding. We wrestle with forgiveness—not as minimizing what happened—but as “giving up all hope of a better past.” We talk about codependency, about trying to fix others in order to feel worthy ourselves. And we explore what Zoe calls the “maintenance phase” of healing, where shame still shows up but no longer gets to run the show.

If everyone has a shame story, the real question becomes: What are you doing with yours? Are you hiding it? Managing it? Overachieving around it?

Or are you bringing it into the light—where Christ has been inviting you the whole time?

Looking for a one-stop recovery resource? Learn more about the Tyndale Life Recovery Bible here.

We Explore:

—The difference between guilt, simple shame, complex shame, and toxic shame
—Why shame drives behavior underground instead of transforming it
—How complex shame builds in layers over time
—The connection between shame and overachievement, self-harm, and addiction patterns
—What it means to “deconstruct the blame”
—Forgiveness as giving up hope of a different past
—The link between shame and codependency
—Why fixing others won’t fix you
—Healthy vulnerability versus oversharing
—What the maintenance phase of healing actually looks like

Get Zoe's new book: Stronger in the Difficult Places
Follow Zoe on Instagram
Watch Zoe's story on OWN
Follow me: @jonseidl
Order my new book, Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic
Get the Tyndale Life Recovery Bible: https://hubs.la/Q041HjWm0

Support the Show: https://www.jonseidl.com/

Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

“I feel like I’m seeing colors now that I didn’t know existed.”

There should be a study done on how many recovering addicts say this exact thing (or something similar) about colors and their senses. It's what I said after getting sober and pursuing Jesus, and it's what Eddie Brett told me happened to him after he did the same thing.

Eddie is someone who had it all. He had the record deal. The top 10 hit. The Simon Cowell contract. He stood on the stage of Britain’s Got Talent and nearly won the whole thing. From the outside, it looked like momentum and success. But inside, things were unraveling.

After getting dropped from his label, the drinking escalated. Nights blurred together. Shame piled up. A drunk-driving incident forced him to sit with a question he’d been avoiding: What if this isn’t just normal partying? What if this is something deeper?

In this episode, Eddie opens up about chasing blackouts, losing himself in alcohol culture, and the moment he admitted in a lonely studio, “I’ve actually got a problem.” He talks about what sobriety exposed in him—old wounds, fear of rejection, and a lifelong habit of running—and he shares how faith grew out of his climb toward finding the parts of himself he had numbed away.

If you’ve ever felt empty after getting everything you wanted, you'll want to hear Eddie's story.

Looking for a one-stop recovery resource? Learn more about the Tyndale Life Recovery Bible here.

We Explore:

– Fame, record deals, and the identity crisis that followed success
– The cultural pressure of British drinking culture and why “I’m fine” is so easy to believe
– The drink-driving incident that forced an honest look inward
– Writing a song alone in a studio and realizing, “I’ve actually got a problem”
– Why early sobriety felt like missing out—and how that shifted
– Replacing alcohol with discipline, fitness, and intentional habits
– The impact of a 30-year sober church member who radiated joy
– How faith reshaped his fashion, language, career decisions, and relationships
– Why pursuing Jesus changed more than just his drinking
– What it means to “see colors you didn’t know existed” in sobriety

Listen to Eddie's new Album: Common Kalos
Follow Eddie on Instagram
Follow me: @jonseidl
Order my new book, Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic
Get the Tyndale Life Recovery Bible: https://hubs.la/Q041HjWm0

Support the Show: https://www.jonseidl.com/

Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.