Ep 103: Part 2/12, Andrea on Faith, Feet Washing, Nike & Nick Cave: How to Build a Relationship with God Series

In this luminous convo, Andrea traces the wild arc of her evolving relationship with God — from a routine Catholic childhood to meaningful moments in the woods, Jerusalem, Bucharest and Buddhism--and then finally to Rumi’s field, where she found her intuition. Together, they ask: what happens when we stop trying to find God and instead feel God within? This dialogue is both pilgrimage and permission slip — an invocation to question, to trust, to unlearn. If you’ve felt the pull between devotion and doubt, and sense the sacred might be nearby, listen up. There’s a nod to Nick Cave’s “Faith, Hope & Carnage”, Natalie Goldberg’s “Long Quiet Highway” and Marcus J. Borg’s “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time” as well as Elizabeth Gilbert. You’ll hear:

-Why Andrea cried so much at the Garden Tomb

-Reasons to be grateful for a Catholic upbringing

-How a Zoom meeting is like a Catholic mass

-How Andrea’s prayer has evolved from begging to being in the now

-Why feet-washing reminds her to be kind

-Where Buddhism and Christianity meet for her

-How a relationship with God makes her feel more like herself

TRANSCRIPT:

Janelle Orion 0:00

Janelle, struggling to discuss sex and intimacy with your partner, not feeling met, seen or heard in your relationships. I'm Janelle And I'm Andrea. We're two midlife Mavericks sharing our own experiences, messy, AF and no regrets with marriage, divorce, polyamory and pleasure. We've learned that when you're brave enough to figure out what you want and ask for it, with partners, friends, family and most importantly, yourself, you'll feel more alive and free question everything, especially your mother's advice. There's no rom com formula for this. But don't panic. Being alone matters, honey, I can't miss you if you don't leave, what if your breakup could be your breakthrough? Our podcast is for brave hearts. Anyone who seeks or has found the courage to confront their fears and limiting beliefs about breaking societal norms in the spirit of finding their truth.

Janelle Orion 0:54

If you're seeking permission to be brave in your relationships and want to feel less alone along the way, we got you,

Janelle Orion 1:07

brave hearts. What's your journey towards God you're about to hear Andrea's, and it's a beautiful, vulnerable expression of how that relationship changes, really evolves through the decades, and she has some really potent stories and revelations of how God and the universe has expressed through her in her lifetime. But my big takeaway from this episode is that there are no answers. There is no finish line. But the journey of coming home to self, coming home to God, is very intertwined. What Andrea expresses is how that journey leads to her own sense of freedom and liberation.

Andrea Enright 1:59

Absolutely, very proud. You're gonna hear about Buddhism and Catholicism and the Middle East and Jerusalem and Israel and Jesus and all sorts of stories and how it all intersects together. Yeah, nice literary flavor to the entire thing.

Janelle Orion 2:22

Hey, Andrea, hi Janelle. Hi, brave hearts. Welcome back to our second episode of our season five, building a relationship with God or spirit or the universe or divine, whatever you're calling it.

Andrea Enright 2:40

That's right, that's right. We can cater to whatever you want, but it's pretty edgy topic, and we're diving in anyway, because that's what we do. We talk about taboo topics, because that's where the juice is.

Janelle Orion 2:57

And so Andrea interviewed me last week, and I'm interviewing her this week, and then the rest of the season, we're going to be interviewing other bravehearts about their take on spirituality, and we're excited to bring you this season. Mm, hmm, yeah, so let's just get started. Andrea, how far back do you want to go? Where did your relationship with God begin,

Andrea Enright 3:23

yes, and it was God a long time ago. It was definitely God for a long time, not spirit. I would say it's different now, but I was brought up Catholic like you, Janelle, and I'm very grateful for that platform from which I was able to leap. But church when I was young, was very much about following the rules, looking good on Sunday, making sure I memorized the Apostles Creed. I knew when to stand up, I knew when to sit down. It was like movie quoting, like I knew exactly. I knew the whole thing. Knew the whole thing by heart. It really

Janelle Orion 3:57

was like the Catholic Church is the origin for you knowing, memorizing movie codes. Love it. Question is,

Andrea Enright 4:04

yeah, did I start watching movies first or going to church first? I'm not sure. But father Garen, who is our, our priest, yeah, I mean, I remember just knowing, like I knew his everything, he said too, right? Even when we started doing zoom calls, they would be like, the zoom, meeting has ended on the thing. And I would, I would hear, in my head, church has ended, Go in grace and God and serve the world. Like that just came up for me so but I think I learned my values from my parents. I do think that's important. People had said, Oh, I was taught by the Catholic Church to be this and be that. And was like, Yes, but No, my parents taught me by I would say my values and we were good church goers. We probably went 75% of the time. First, I'm

Janelle Orion 4:50

going to interject right here, what were your values?

Andrea Enright 4:53

Oh, let's see. I haven't thought about that, but I mean not in, not in a structured format. I. What were my values? My values were hard work, love, honesty. Think those, those stand out the most. Strength was another big value that was important, okay, in your family, great, yeah. And so, as I was saying, I went to church a lot of the time, but we definitely skipped Sundays. I gave something up for Lent for a few years, and then probably it fell away. I went to CCD never read the Bible. I did not understand how it all fits together at all. I mean, I just, I really didn't. I just was like, Okay, great. God's on my side. He's a white man in a robe. I prayed in that usual cafeteria Catholic way where you like, don't pray at all until you really need something like, oh my god, please let this boy come back to me. Please, let me get a good rate on this final I swear I'll never ask for anything again, if you just give me this thing. That was the sum total of my prayers. But I did go through the confirmation and the communion and all that stuff, as I'm sure, I'm sure, Janelle, you did, right? You did all that stuff.

Janelle Orion 6:09

Yeah, the sacrament that I stopped at was, I did not get married in the Catholic Church, right?

Andrea Enright 6:13

Neither did I. Yeah, good point. That was the sacrament you stopped at, right? And as my ex husband used to say it did give us this platform from which to jump, like he gave us a rudder, and that was nice to have, even though I am not I'm no longer a Catholic today, so I'm grateful for that.

Janelle Orion 6:30

Okay, so I'm curious, when you say it was a platform to for which to jump, what are the things that it gave you that you are grateful for

Janelle Orion 6:39

the Catholic Church? I guess it gave me a belief to have about God, when in the world, some people were believing in God, and if I didn't know what that meant, I would have been a little bit in the dark. So it helped me understand how God fit into people's lives. And I think it gave me an optimistic look at the world probably, like, everything will be okay. God will take care of us, so you're definitely going to heaven no matter what. No, there was a little bit of threat of hell. But, I mean, I wasn't a bad person, like, I wasn't going to grow up to be a criminal, like, I just, I wasn't worried about that. And then I though I did go to confession, and which always seemed really bizarre, like, I just, I couldn't think of, like, what was I did that was so bad I don't know if fought with my brother, like, that was all that I ever could come up with. Like, you know, I'm sure there were little things, but that didn't, that didn't really resonate. I guess when I talk about church. Now, I would say it gave me a foundation, right? A foundation of love, a foundation to build upon, almost like a structure. And I like structure. I like to have things, you know, in organized boxes, right? So, great. So this is what I'm supposed to do. I go to Communion. I go to confirmation that I'm going to get married. Church was just woven into all of that. It was part of my foundation growing up.

Janelle Orion 8:04

What I'm hearing, though, is that you're, you know, you stopped being practicing Catholic. You didn't get married in the Catholic Church. So if it provided you this foundation of love and structure which you do like, why did you leave it like what didn't work for you? I think

Andrea Enright 8:15

it was probably in my 20s, not until my 20s, that I really acknowledged the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, I just kind of ignored it for a long time, because it obviously was not pro women, not pro choice, and pretty conservative, but it probably two things happened when I was around 27 I started marching and Phone banking for Planned Parenthood escorting at the abortion clinic. And I was like, Oh, my Catholic, Catholicism really doesn't work anymore, because it doesn't work with this. The religion doesn't allow for this. It doesn't support birth control. It was awful, right? And I was just like, Okay, well, there's a crack obviously, like, this isn't working for me anymore. I wasn't going to church, but I wasn't quite comfortable completely leaving it because it felt comfortable to me and it felt safe. Then I met this woman, Barbara Keeble. She was 20 years older than me. We'd hang out on her back deck and drink spiked lemonade and smoke Barbara lights. She gave me a book called meeting Jesus again for the first time.

Andrea Enright 9:20

And I read this book, and I was like, wait what? I was definitely floored and angry and annoyed, because it turns out Jesus was a feminist and was really kind to lepers, and he was really not very judgmental at all. And I felt really betrayed by Catholicism, and this was big, because the Catholic Church had been a steady, nostalgic source of love for me and safety, and this began my journey as what I call a recovering Catholic,

Janelle Orion 9:51

because this book pointed out the discrepancy of what Jesus teachings were versus what was being stated in the Bible and being taught. By the Catholic Church?

Andrea Enright 10:01

Yes, I'll restate that, because it's not, it's not about the Bible, and I would say it's not even about Jesus' teachings. It was about Jesus Himself, right? It was like, Oh, here's Jesus the man, the human, and here's what the Catholic Church was talking about. They weren't the same. They had overlap, but there was a lot of discrepancy there, and that bothered me. And it was also, at the time like, oh, is this real son of God rising all the all the woo was starting to bother me. Was like, oh, this doesn't make sense. I'm not sure if I believe this anymore.

Janelle Orion 10:37

So I just read this book in the past couple of months, and it's called miracles and wonder, the historical mystery of Jesus. And it's written by Elaine Pagels, who is a historian and theologian out of Harvard, who's maybe in her 80s now. And it feels like it could be a book that could resonate for you now. I mean, I read it and it was like it and it was, like, it was just kind of fascinating to see through this historical perspective, like it reconciles or disgust is, rather doesn't reconcile anything. But, like, here's Woo, but what's the woo about? But why is the impact of Jesus as a man and as a myth been so impactful over 2000 years, right? You can't deny the impact of this, of this mythological yes archetype and man and so anyway, for anyone listening, that book was really impactful, really extraordinarily well written.

Andrea Enright 11:39

Okay, great, because I think this, there's so much to say here, but because the story of Christianity was so accepted in the world I was in, and so regular in my Midwest upbringing, and then even when I went to college, also in Illinois, like heck, you know, like a lot of people, believed in God that I happened to be around. And the Christian God, the Christian God, exactly. And I do remember at some point watching the South Park episode about the Book of Mormon, right? And them talking about, sort of just, of course, making fun of the Mormon religion, just like, oh, this story about and thinking how silly it sounded, right? Because it was just some sounded like some made up story that this guy did. And I was like, oh, that's, I guess, basically how Christianity sounds too. It sounds fake. It sounds like someone made it up. Like, who am I to say? It just was such a such a moment of like, no one fucking knows what's going on, and people are using these stories to help them feel better. And that's fine, like I'm not judging that, but let's just like, be real about it.

Andrea Enright 12:47

So in my late 20s, I read the long, quiet highway by Natalie Goldberg. I got this book from Mari Cohen. Mari Cohen, you're getting lots of credit. I hope you're listening. She really cares about credit, and it was a totally new thing for me. She was a Jewish woman. She was talking about Buddhism. She'd been brought up on the East Coast, and it spoke to me in all these different ways. And I was like, Whoa, what the fuck like this blew my mind. And that's when I started exploring Buddhism, and really started leaving the idea of Christianity behind and

Janelle Orion 13:21

Catholicism. Yeah, you've mentioned that book so many times on this podcast. I feel like it's probably the book that has the greatest, like, I don't know, has, like, one of the stamps of, like, the greatest impact on your life.

Andrea Enright 13:32

Yes. I mean, it was a massive wake up for me. Not. It was partially about religion, but it was also just about materialism and capitalism and self and meditation. And it was, it was huge. I carried it around for years. It was like my Bible. I would take it everywhere.

Janelle Orion 13:51

Bible, take notes in

Janelle Orion 13:55

it. I used to always say that

Janelle Orion 13:59

the other big thing that

Andrea Enright 14:00

happened was that my back, my husband and I backpacked through the Middle East and North Africa after we were in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria for two and a half years. And of course, that was interesting, because we were going through all of these different countries with different religions, different beliefs, and I was traipsing over really, allegedly holy ground. I mean, I once posted a blog called like Jesus might have had coffee here, right? There was just so much literature and buildings and architecture and stories, and there was a lot of holy land. And when my husband and I took a detour from our Syrian route into Israel for Holy Week, we got to see how everybody worshiped, firsthand, the Episcopalians, the Jews, the Christians, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, they all had a corner right of the Holy Sepulcher. It was wild. We were in Bethlehem. We visited. I walked the Stations of the Cross. We partied with other tourists, other backpackers on Purim and. We walked around Israel with a friar who was really an educational experience for me. And he was awesome. He was probably, you know, 25 and he just brought it all down to earth for me, right?

Janelle Orion 15:14

Can you just Friar is an unfamiliar, I mean, I've heard of this, yeah, but mostly from The Hobbit. So, can you share, I don't

Andrea Enright 15:21

know, like, what's a Friar? Like, it feels like it's like a loose it's like a light priest. It's not true, but it was someone that

Janelle Orion 15:31

you but it was someone who you just, like, met, it's like, you hired him. It was just like, he was like, one of

Andrea Enright 15:36

the backpackers, yeah, he's a Franciscan friar, right? And he just was also touring Israel, okay? And so we would walk around, and he'd be like, well, this is what's actually happening here. Is this, you know, everyone wants a piece of Israel. All these different religions want a piece. And so that's what's happening here. Okay, so I just want to put this into context, because what I'm hearing, right? So you went to the Peace Corps at 30. So we're talking about you backpacking with your ex husband in the Middle East around 33 years old, just noticing

Janelle Orion 16:09

the Christ year. Just that's how funny. Wow. The Christ year is 33 when someone's 32 years old, they're living out their Christ year. So anyway, did not side.

Andrea Enright 16:23

Oh, my God, you're joking. What? I've never heard this. Okay, yeah, how did you know? Yeah, it was when I was 33

Janelle Orion 16:32

Well, I just did the math. Like, I know enough of your life that I just I know together. So I'm letting the so brave hearts, like, understand, like, you're an adult here, and you are seeing, I mean, I'm just, I've not been to this part of the the world. I wish I had, and I hope to go of this, like, yeah, this intersection of, really, it's like the Red Hot smoking center of where all these religions come together. I love it red hot, smoking center. That totally makes sense Absolutely.

Andrea Enright 17:06

And I was coming in with this Catholic Foundation, and then this interjection of Buddhism midlife, and my own doubt about the entire thing. And so I was ripe right for something, right? I was like, Oh, how am I going to understand this better? How am I going to how am I going to abandon it? What's going on? So I was taking it all in. I was watching the Hasidic Jews walk around with their outfits. I was walking watching the 22 year olds walking around with their big guns because they were in the military. There was all this contrast going on. But I realized a couple things in that trip, and one was the kindness of Jesus that I wanted to keep emulating, because Eric the friar, told me about this story about, would you wash my feet, right? And Jesus washed everyone's feet. All the apostles and in the Middle Ages, people's feet were pretty gross, right? We're not talking about a pedicure. We're talking about nasty like horse shit on people's feet. And so there was this kindness in washing washing feet. And then Sophie Howell and her witness sister had retreated Everland, which I went to a few years ago, replicated this idea. We washed each other's feet, and it just felt like so there was so much compassion in that, and so much kindness. And I was like, Okay, I want, I want to do that like that's, that's something I want to emulate, is Jesus kindness.

Andrea Enright 18:36

And then on Easter Sunday, at 6am we walked through the souk in Jerusalem to the Garden Tomb, which is the Presbyterian celebration of Easter Sunday. And it was so beautiful, in contrast to the rest of of Jerusalem, where there was a lot of rules and tourists and boundaries and oh, this is for this. This is for that. I believe this. You believe this. There was so much kindness at the Garden Tomb. It was like an ice cream social, like, I feel like people were handing out watermelons and oxygen and birds were chirping, and I was just crying. And I was, I was just like, bawling, bawling, bawling, right? So I was just had all this, like, emotional release about God and Jesus. And was like, Oh, I

Andrea Enright 19:22

don't want to be Catholic anymore. Like Catholicism is not my way. I was crying, and I said to my husband, I can't figure out what's wrong with me. And he said, You mean what's right with you?

Janelle Orion 19:34

Oh, my gosh, that just struck my heart right there, right? I know

Andrea Enright 19:39

Boudreau, he's got a lot of good lines. Yeah, it was beautiful. I still remember just crying, bawling, crying, and of course, at the time, I wasn't used to crying then, unless I was, like, watching a sad movie, you know, that was it, right? Like I didn't. I didn't know crying as a release, but I was really releasing. In that Catholic tradition, I was releasing that those Catholic beliefs

Janelle Orion 20:05

and the Catholic beliefs of like rigid, you have to be a certain way, and you it only, you're only gonna go to heaven if you fit this certain box, if

Andrea Enright 20:14

you check these, yes, yeah, exactly. There were so many rules, right? So many rules. Women couldn't be priests. You weren't supposed to have sex outside of marriage. If you're gay, going to Exactly, right? If you you were going to hell in general. Was anyone really going to hell? Like it was awful. There was just so much fear and so many rules. And I was like, that's not my path anymore. That's not my path to God, right? This is my path to God. This is when I also realized that we're all seeking the same thing, right? Connection, kindness, love. If you're seeking that I'm with you, it's just like a big wagon wheel, and we're all just these different spokes trying to get to the center. And as I traveled, then the next revelation came, where I was reading Liz Gilbert's Ypres love, just to throw in a little like pop culture in there, I was going through all this holy land. I was exploring Buddhism, and I wrote a blog when we were traveling that eventually said,

Andrea Enright 21:24

Oh, I get it now, although Jesus bops around town, running errands, dropping off his dry cleaning, picking up oatmeal, getting his oil change, most of the time, he's right here in my heart like he lives in me, and that is the belief that I really took forward.

Janelle Orion 21:40

So what I'm hearing is that perhaps it went from outside. Jesus was an outside of you concept, Oh, I love Jesus, and Jesus is outside of me, to at the end of this journey, this time period, when you're 33 you ended up with Jesus in your heart, living within you, correct?

Andrea Enright 22:00

And I would say that eventually translated to the word God, and not Jesus,

Janelle Orion 22:07

beautiful. Okay, so then what happened

Janelle Orion 22:09

next? So I think I just kind of kept figuring it out, like, Okay, God lives in my heart. I can access that when I want this was something I was exploring. So then I was trying to figure out how to fit it into my life, right? And it's like, Okay, what does this mean, right? Who am I? And then there was this lingering Buddhism over here. I was meditating. I was trying that out. How does it work? And across those last 10 years, I remember thinking that I still had seen God at different points in my life. This is part of what kept my belief up, that that he existed. And there were three points that stood out. I remember thinking that I saw God in the forest on a night walk without headlamps in the middle of the night the summer before I got married, when I went camping, there was something transcendent or something spiritual or religious about that walk. Then I was in an alley in Prague when I'd lost my way with a friend, and we talked to someone, and it seemed like they appeared out of nowhere, and we asked them where they were from, and they said the mountains, and they told us where to go, and it just it felt like another presence of God. And then I was crossing the street in Bucharest, and I looked up and I saw the birds, and again, some sort of godly presence. And I kind of held on tight to these ideas, right? I was like, Okay, this is just more existence, right? More clues telling me about God. But I now recognize in my burgeoning Buddhist belief that these were times when I felt deeply in the now, when I was particularly

Janelle Orion 23:57

present. So do you equate then presence and God.

Andrea Enright 24:03

I think I do now think there is a connection between feeling present and feeling God.

Andrea Enright 24:11

And I spoke about kindness. I think that I wanted to emulate kindness like Jesus, which I realized in Jerusalem. And I also wanted to emulate love for the world. And my friend Erin Barnett once said when she was going to church a lot, and I don't remember if she still goes to church now that her job is to love who Jesus loves, and that's pretty much everyone. But I amended that to say that, yes, I'm supposed to love who Jesus loves. That doesn't mean I have to hang out with them, right? So just kind of fit like, I'm just like, Okay, great. Like, yes, let's love everyone, and let's have conditional love for who I want to be around and who I want in my life. To quote you, Janelle,

Janelle Orion 24:53

yeah, an episode a few times ago, yeah. Okay, beautiful. I get that, right. So, like, yeah, there's this. What? I'm hearing is the Jesus, the love is this trans, personal, Soul level love, where everyone is love, yeah.

Andrea Enright 25:08

And as my journey continues, I think I'm always then trying to build a relationship with the God that lives in me. Within me

Janelle Orion 25:19

is the God that lives within you, separate from you.

Andrea Enright 25:24

I don't know. I would feel so good to say I don't know, because I don't know. I'm still figuring that out, like I'm not sure. I think it's a little bit of both. I'm always open to discussing more, right, trying to figure it out more. Wait is it, the Woo? Is this? There's this higher power? Oh no, it's really just me. There's the science of manifestation. Oh no, it's the woo of manifestation.

Andrea Enright 25:48

I feel like I could talk endlessly about this, and I have talked endlessly about this with many people, and not always come to a firm conclusion. Recently, I read Nick Cave's book, faith, hope and carnage. And he said, Nick Cave is a musician, a British musician, who I saw perform earlier this year. And he said, what if the seeking was actually God himself?

Janelle Orion 26:20

What if the seeking was actually God Himself, so the action of seeking was God, is is God?

Andrea Enright 26:28

Yeah, because I remember, actually, I remember Liz Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love, saying that maybe some nun or some monk said to her, look for God. Look for God. Like a man with his head on fire, looks for water, which is a quote I just loved forever. I'm just like, oh yeah. Just look, look all the time. Where are the miracles? Where is God? Where is it living? Where is the delight? As Mary Oliver recently said in the poem you read, oh, yeah, the delight is in the mundane. The light delight is in the ordinary. It's everywhere around us. You don't have to pay a lot for it. It doesn't have to be a big production. Doesn't have to be sparkly, yeah.

Janelle Orion 27:14

The quote that I love, that came through me was like, It's exquisite to be in the flow of the magic, and the miracles. And I'm always in that flow, even in a and so when I have, like, something happen, and I'm like, Oh, why is that happening? I'm like, where's the magic? Where are the miracles? Okay, because they're here too. I just, I can either go down the rabbit hole, but it's like, okay, I need to, like, knowing that both exist at the same time. Yes.

Andrea Enright 27:41

And that leads me to, you tell, can you tell that I followed Liz Gilbert most of my life? Oh, my God, another Liz Gilbert coat was like she I think she said maybe she's quoting someone else. She said that the opposite of faith is not doubt, it's certainty.

Janelle Orion 27:58

Yes, I think she's quoting someone else, because faith

Janelle Orion 28:02

includes uncertainty. Of course, we're not sure. We're seeking, we're looking, we're finding, we're looking, we're finding. And this yet in another serendipitous coming together of rivers into the same ocean. It really does relate back to my favorite quote about from Rebecca solnut in the field guide to getting lost, where she says, What if you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up? What if you can own your longing and looking in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? Right? So she's talking about the seeking. She's talking about the longing, the looking, and if I can just be okay in that without the certainty of, like, Oh, yep, there's God proof done. That's what I'd like to do.

Janelle Orion 28:57

The blue that she speaks about, right? I was thinking about it as, like the blue of the sky, like I can never own the blue of the sky. I can just like, gaze upon it with awe and wonder and like the beauty and the miracle of it all. But it's not mine.

Janelle Orion 29:17

It just is. Yeah, that's another interpretation of it. That's, I love it. She's talking about the horizon, like as you're driving right, and you're looking and you're seeing, Oh, it's a little more blue. It's just out of reach. Oh, it's blue. Again, it's just out of reach. Oh, I'm here where I was wanting to be. Oh, but there's the blue ahead that's just out of reach. But it is from the sky, of course. Yeah, yummy. This is yummy. Let's talk about God all the time.

Janelle Orion 29:46

We kind of do, actually,

Andrea Enright 29:47

we do this is true,

Janelle Orion 29:51

because everything is about that expression, right? This feeling of, I don't know it's this UN. Known the state of being this. I just had an experience last night where I was like, oh, where I was like feeling God, and I was like crying, like, just like crying in the beauty, just the beauty of it all, and and then the beauty of it all includes the heartbreak and the grief and the magic, and it's, there's like a it's like a vibration in my system. Like, I don't have visuals, I just have these feelings. I feel you in that similar place, right? We don't know if you and I are actually even in the same place or, like, seeking the same thing, but there's just this like, oh, maybe we're swimming in the same waters. So you just talked about your journey to the Middle East, which was profound, which was at this point, you know, almost 20 years ago, and since then, you know, you've had a child like life has continued. Did anything change for you? Was your relationship with God when you were in your, you know, your older and wiser 40s,

Andrea Enright 31:01

yeah. Well, I think I knew that God lived in my heart for a long time. I also was not paying attention to that much. I think I hadn't spent a lot of time just with myself. I didn't spend a lot of time alone. I didn't spend time praying. I wasn't going to church. I was practicing Buddhism and practicing meditation, and that started me on the path of spending time alone, just with myself. But I didn't get really into it, because I was in my head so much. Because I was in my head a lot. I didn't get really into it, probably until 10 years ago and during the nights alone, when my husband and I were practicing polyamory, and he was gone, and during my time in Costa Rica, I spent a lot of time just me, and at first it was very uncomfortable. I didn't know what to do with that, but this is part of when I started building a relationship. This is part of when I started building a stronger relationship with me, right, with my intuition, with my inner voice. And I guess it felt most potent when I then started getting messages and downloads in big ways that I could hear and listen to. It's so hard to say if it was just my intuition being louder, or if spirit was involved, it was an outside source talking to me. I still don't know. Do you think of intuition and God as the same? I'm not sure. This is the confusion. This is where I don't know. But I know that I started to build a stronger relationship with myself, and that strengthened my relationship with God or spirit or the universe. And I think I didn't trust myself for a long time. You know, I didn't have that strong relationship with my intuition. I can tell you bravehearts that my relationship with myself and my relationship with God are very tightly woven together. They support one another, and they support my own.

Janelle Orion 33:02

Becoming You said you didn't trust yourself, and that was part of this journey. What were you not trusting? Your intuition, your decision making, how you were living your life, like, what? What didn't you trust? I don't

Andrea Enright 33:17

know this is really confusing. I thought I had made the right decisions in life.

Andrea Enright 33:24

I liked my job, I loved my husband, I loved my child. I knew when I wanted to have a child. I knew when I wanted to change my job, go traveling. I really liked my life, but I do know that when I made decisions, it was a struggle. I heard voices didn't trust them. Heard voices didn't trust them, asked other people, asked a book at looked online like my decision making process was fraught. It took a long time, and it wasn't an ease.

Janelle Orion 33:57

And it sounds like you were consulting other people's opinions about what decisions you should make exactly because I didn't trust my own. So do you believe it sounds like you do in a higher power?

Andrea Enright 34:09

It doesn't make rational sense, but I don't know how else to explain the people, mainly the people I think, that have been delivered to me at just the right time in my life. My daughter. You Amanda, Mari Erin, my ex boyfriend Josh, my new boyfriend, Kevin, my ex husband. Boudreau, like so many people, have been given to me with the medicine that I needed when I needed

Janelle Orion 34:37

it. With that, do you feel that the part of the point in life is God is here to help us grow.

Andrea Enright 34:46

Yep, I think I do. Do you?

Janelle Orion 34:50

It's like back, coming back to that poem, if feel, or that statement by Rebecca Solnit. It's like one in the same to me. I. Like my soul's growth is God's expression through me as me So Andrea, how does having a relationship with Spirit help you find peace amongst the suffering in the world? Because we know there's a lot of that.

Andrea Enright 35:18

It helps me take care of me, so that I know I am whole, or I'm working on being whole, regardless of what's happening outside of me, whether that's a partner or a crisis or a tragedy, like I'm whole and here now, and that's the aspiration, that's really all I know. I'm not even sure if that's right, and I think it's only something I've been embracing in the last five or 10 years,

Janelle Orion 35:43

and the wholeness in you helps you navigate the suffering of the world.

Andrea Enright 35:49

I think I just, I just know that rather than take care of everyone else first, or take care of the homeless or give money to a cause like no, I have to take care of me first, and then I can be present and see where I can help the most. And so I just feel like building a relationship with myself gives me the capacity to hold the suffering better, whether I'm just holding it while I'm sitting on my porch, or whether I'm holding it by volunteering somewhere. But does it make me help me make sense of the suffering? No, to be clear, it doesn't.

Janelle Orion 36:31

So I just want to check in with you. We've been kind of calling it God. Now you haven't really been saying spirit. So do you want me to use the word God here?

Andrea Enright 36:38

I actually use the word universe the most now.

Janelle Orion 36:41

Okay, great, yeah, all right. So brave hearts, we just figured out that Andrea has evolved into using the word universe instead of the word spirit or instead of the word God. So how does a relationship with the universe impact your other relationships Andrea?

Andrea Enright 37:00

I think it helps me recognize myself as my own best friend, so that I know that my efforts, my practice, my love for other people, comes from a place of wanting and not needing,

Janelle Orion 37:14

so that your relationships come from a place of wanting and not needing. So what I'm hearing with that is you feel whole yourself, like you could you can navigate the world alone. And I don't mean alone like you're single, per se, but that there's a there's a confidence and trust in yourself to navigate the world. And then from that place, you're inviting others into it,

Andrea Enright 37:40

yes, and then, as a result of me having a relationship with myself and or the universe, my relationships with others feel more pure, more clean and more honest. Let's also note here, as I'm feel like I'm saying some big stuff here, like, you know, I'm working on this, right? Like, this isn't like, Oh, I'm done. It's all good. I built a relationship with myself. Now I can go rest. There's no resting. Apparently, I think Jesus would disagree with this, but there's no resting. There is resting, but there's no destination. There's no destination. There's no finish line. Right back to the My Orion of my parents. There was a picture in my house of my mom and dad standing in front of the Nike. There is no finish line. Oh, at the Nike store, it's probably 30 years old, but it's interesting. I've actually never equated it or made the parallel between that. Like, there, no, you just have to keep going. No, you have to keep going. Like, just keep working, keep digging. And that really is the same thing as we're talking about. Like, keep seeking, keep growing.

Janelle Orion 38:56

You can rest, but you can follow the ease. It can be easy. It can be easeful. May not be easy, but it can be useful. Yeah, exactly. Andrea, thank you so much. I know, as someone who just was interviewed last week, it is so vulnerable to talk into these microphones about what it is that we believe about something that is only our own truth, right? Yeah, your truth isn't my truth. Yeah, it's big. How would you suggest someone find their deepest belief or find their self or find their spiritual path? Not everyone's gonna get to go to the Middle East and travel through the Holy Lands.

Andrea Enright 39:40

Question everything. Be curious about your own beliefs about everything. Question The old advice you were given, question the old scripts or scripture you were given, spend time alone, listen, write letters to yourself. Notice your patterns. Be aware of when you get stuck, stay committed to change. It's not an easy path, but it's worth it, for sure.

Janelle Orion 40:09

When you say it's worth it, what is it that can you describe, like the feeling or what or why it's worth it?

Andrea Enright 40:17

It's worth it because I feel more like me than I ever have before. And feeling like me, feeling like the full self, is a feeling that I wasn't familiar with for a long time. I didn't know what I didn't know though I thought I was being full me. Thought I was being myself. I thought I was free, but I was also not being honest with myself and ignoring these voices. And I knew that deep down,

Janelle Orion 40:50

when I feel into that feeling, my the fullness of me being able to express the sense of self, like, what comes up for me is a sense of like, liberation and freedom. It's not tied to the definitions of what we think of, like, we're stand for freedom. But there's just, it's something in my in my beingness, that feels liberated.

Andrea Enright 41:16

Absolutely, I completely agree. I feel free, I may hesitate to use that word, because 10 years ago, I would have said, Yes, I'm totally free. I'm free to express myself, I'm free to do this. I'm free to travel, free to have a baby, whatever that is. I felt very free. I just I didn't understand the layers and the levels of freedom.

Janelle Orion 41:39

What are the rituals and practices in your life around this relationship with the universe,

Andrea Enright 41:46

journaling, spending time alone, looking at art, listening to music. But I'm actually going to reflect what my friend SB, who is a freelance rabbi and priestess, who you will hear later on in series five, because we interview her. She's our next episode. She's next week. Oh, great. So Sarah said, Oh, the rituals and practices are whenever we're completely present, whenever we're present throughout the day, right? So that for me, that would mean when I'm singing, when I'm playing piano, when I'm dancing, I think, when I'm kissing, when I am fully present, and that might be with another person, but that presence is when I am practicing. And bizarrely enough, that can apply both to, I think for me, a Christian God and also a Buddhist deity.

Janelle Orion 42:51

Do you have this sense that everyone's God is the same God? Everyone's universe is the same universe?

Andrea Enright 43:00

Yeah, I'm just not gonna think about that too much and just go with my first instinct and like, Yeah, I think it is everyone just, everyone just looks differently. Everyone's God might look different, or how we got there, or the path to it, or your practices, or your rituals, or your scripture, or the way that you pray. It's just another fucking example of letting go of form,

Janelle Orion 43:27

the mantra that never dies.

Andrea Enright 43:30

Oh, my god, yeah. Kevin just said that. He just quoted me when he was in an interview. He's like, Well, my girlfriend's always talking about letting go of form. I go of form. I'm like, Okay, this thing has legs, man, this is crazy, yeah, and you got it? I feel like I need to write a letter to

Andrea Enright 43:53

winter Jade iceley. Is that her name? Because she's, she's the one you heard it from,

Janelle Orion 43:59

yes. Okay, Braveheart, take a deep breath. You made it through this episode. You were blessed to hear Andrea's journey. Yeah, that was a pun of her relationship to God and spirit and the universe, and she just spoke beautifully about the evolution of it all right? That it feels, what I heard in my takeaway is, not only is there not one way for it to look, but that for in each of us, and in her case, like it gets to look different pretty much every decade, right? That there's a new place on the path that we're at. And does it make mean that any of our where we were 10 years ago? Wrong? It just means we've evolved, and potentially there's just. More God expressing and emanating through us than there

Janelle Orion 45:04

was before. Thank you, friend.

Janelle Orion 45:06

Thank you. Thank you for sharing and vulnerably expressing on this topic. So brave hearts. We love you and we're excited to share the next 10 episodes with you of other people's journeys on their path.

Janelle Orion 45:28

Hey, Bravehearts, looking for permission. Work with us. Andrea offers permission coaching, and Janelle offers erotic wellness sessions. Follow us on Instagram, meet us in real life at permission to be human workshops in Denver. Subscribe to our newsletter. Do all this and more at our website. Permission to be human. Dot live. You.