What is the connection to our brain's health and our mental health? How can taking care of our brains help us heal from grief, trauma, depression or anxiety?

Dr. Daniel Amen is a world renowned psychiatrist who began to notice early in his practice that there was a disconnect in psychiatry and the lack of study being done on the brain. It was through years of scanning brains through a technology called SPECT that Dr. Amen began to recognize that what many considered mental health issues were actually brain health issues and that when you started to heal the brain, you could begin to see incredible healing with the myriad of symptoms plaguing his patients. Dr. Amen has spent his lifetime and practice teaching people the importance of brain health through his many books. He recently released Raising Mentally Strong Kids: How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love and Logic to Grow Confident, Kind, Responsible, and Resilient Children and Young Adults to help parents.

In this episode, Kristi and Davey sit down with Dr. Amen to discuss why brain health matters with our mental health, how to heal our brains after trauma, and how brain science can help us in parenting.

If you or someone you love struggles with mental health or if you are trying to raise brain healthy kids, this conversation will teach you how to better care for the part of you that impacts your life the most.

What happens when we attempt to selectively numb our pain? How does a season in the wilderness of suffering transform us if we allow it?

Dr. John Walker has been a guiding voice and encouragement to countless pastors who find themselves in the throes of trauma, tragedy or burnout. He has offered a safe landing place for those who are tasked with shepherding others through the organization he founded called Blessings Ranch, a counseling and coaching ministry to help leaders live, lead, and finish well. For Davey, Dr. Walker was a vital voice on his healing journey, offering him a lifeline in the traumatic aftermath of losing his wife, Amanda.

In this very meaningful conversation, Davey gets to sit down with the very counselor who helped guide him on a path of healing and transformation after the immense pain and suffering he endured. They talk about the coping mechanisms we often look to after sorrow, why self-care is so important for our emotional and spiritual health, and how transformation happens.

If you've ever found yourself trying to ignore the pain you're feeling, this episode will convince you that going around it isn't an option, but if you choose to go through it, you will not only find healing on the other side but joy and life again as well.

Warning: This episode briefly mentions suicidal ideation and may not be suitable for all listeners.

What happens when we realize all our methods to find healing are merely ineffective attempts of self-help? How can pain lead us into a true understanding of our utter dependence and need for God in our lives?

Former country music recording artist and author Granger Smith found himself attempting to do everything "by the book" when it came to dealing with the drowning death of his young son, River. He did everything self-help offered when it came to finding healing and yet, it all fell flat. It was then that God revealed to him that he did not have the power to heal himself. The healing he needed could come only through the gospel of Jesus Christ. From then, Granger turned away from a nominal faith into a saving one and was able to experience the true depths of healing from his shame and guilt over the loss of his son. He gave up his successful music career and began seminary and ministry in his local church. Granger recently wrote about the story of this journey of losing River and his newfound authentic faith in his book, Like a River: Finding the Faith and Strength to Move Forward After Loss and Heartache.

In this episode, Davey and Granger talk about how self-help can't truly heal us, the difference between a nominal faith and a saving one, and how the gospel is what we need most when it comes to finding healing that can last.

If you've ever turned to self-help in an attempt to assuage the guilt, shame, or hurt from your past, only to find it unable to do so, this conversation will encourage you to look for healing in the only one who can truly help: Jesus Christ.

Have you ever wondered if you are still truly healing when the pain feels as fresh as the day you experienced a past loss or grief? How do we know that healing is happening as time moves forward, but our ache remains?

Davey Blackburn, Aubrey Sampson, and Eric Schumacher are not only hosts on the Nothing is Wasted podcast, but all have experienced their own seasons of deep grief, loss, trauma and tragedy. With pastoral wisdom and the heart of fellow sojourners in the valley, this episode is a unique roundtable conversation of what healing truly looks like at different points in our journey. Speaking from raw vulnerability, our Nothing is Wasted hosts share their own personal walk through pain and the often times messy, winding path towards healing.

In this conversation, Davey, Aubrey, and Eric tackle the role time plays in our pain, what to do when it feels as though God is absent in the days after loss, and how the journey towards healing is never a perfectly straight one.

If you are struggling to recognize whether or not healing is happening in your own life, this episode is a gentle comfort in knowing that hurt may remain for your days here on earth, but there is a hope beyond what you can see that will one day undo all the pain you've encountered.

How do we enter a new year after a loss or trauma? What do we do when it feels like that flip of the calendar means leaving something we held so dear in the past?

The truth is with every new milestone, including a new year, our pain can seem to be amplified by the memories of what we've lost. It can be hard to enter a new season knowing that parts of ourselves, people we love and our lives as we once knew them are in the year we are leaving behind. How do we even begin to navigate a beginning after such a tremendously painful ending?

In this episode, Davey spends some time answering the question of what it looks like to walk into a new year after loss, trauma, tragedy or pain. He shares his own personal journey after losing his wife Amanda and how we can still have agency in our lives when it seems like we have no control over anything in our lives.

If you're stepping into this new year with a sense that something so precious is remaining in the past one, this conversation will encourage you with practical ways that you can keep walking forward towards hope and healing.

How often have you found yourself stuck in the past? How is looking back keeping you from moving forward?

Best-selling author, speaker, and founder of A21, a worldwide anti-trafficking organization, Christine Caine knows how pain, trauma, and tragedy can keep a person stuck. Having experienced abandonment, being adopted, abuse and trauma as a child, Christine is well acquainted with the schemes of the enemy to hold her back from the purposes of God. In her latest book, Don't Look Back: Getting Unstuck and Moving Forward with Passion and Purpose, Christine explores Jesus' words in Luke 17:32, "remember Lot's wife," and how looking back kept her and how it keeps us from experiencing the fullness of God's promises, especially in our most painful moments. When our eyes get stuck on our circumstances, past or present, we can miss the invitation from Christ to look forward to a future full of hope.

In this episode, Aubrey has the privilege to sit with Christine to talk about what can get us stuck in the first place, what can happen when we constantly look backwards, and why it is so important to know the promises of God so that we can begin to move forward in faith.

Whatever is keeping you stuck, don't miss the opportunity Jesus is inviting you into as you trust Him when everything around you changes. Let this conversation be a guide for you as you turn towards Him and His promises.

If you looked at Nick Charalambous several years ago, you’d never have guessed what his story is today. You’d see a young journalist is South Carolina with no interest at all in religion, writing a story about churches in the area because it was his job. Today, you’d see man with an incredible story of miraculous healing and a testimony to God’s power. Nick sits down with Davey to talk about coming to faith, overcoming cancer, and so much more.