The SEEK Podcast
Welcome to the SEEK Podcast – we're so glad you’re here. This podcast is a place of community, collaboration, and inspiration, created to invite and encourage you deeper into a relationship with Jesus. Join these podcasters and many others as we encounter Jesus at SEEK25, Jan 1st-5th. For more information and to register, visit seek.focus.org.
The SEEK Podcast
Embracing the Feminine Genius: The Hormone Genius x SEEK
This episode revisits the vibrant energy and profound insights from SEEK, celebrating the spiritual and biological facets of motherhood that resonate with college women across the nation. As we prepare for another enriching experience, we draw inspiration from St. Joan of Arc, our patron for this year’s theme, “Follow Me.” Her extraordinary faith and leadership offer a compelling model of courage and fidelity that continues to influence women today.
We’ll delve into how stress impacts our presence and spiritual life, paralleling the resilience and receptivity that epitomize the feminine genius. Join us as we honor the influential women who have forged paths of bravery in both faith and society. Tune in to discover how to harness your unique gifts and step boldly into your role in the world, inspired by the enduring legacy of St. Joan of Arc.
Register for SEEK: seek.focus.org
Welcome to the Seek Podcast, where we explore faith, inspire hope and build community. My name is John Michael Lucido and I'm excited to invite you to join us this season as we dive into topics about the faith with people from all over the Catholic world. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Know that we are praying for you.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to this very special episode of the Hormone Genius Podcast. This is an incredible episode that we are doing, Jamie and I, to announce our participation at SEEK 2025, which will be in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jamie and I are privileged to be a live podcaster at SEEK 25, but we want to reflect back first on SEEK 24 in St Louis, where we got to also do a live podcast for the very first time. For those of you who do not know what SEEK is, it is a beautiful Catholic conference that is sponsored by FOCUS, which is the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. This is an incredibly big conference. We're talking upwards of 20,000 people basically, most of them being college-age students.
Speaker 2:Why is this important to Jamie and I? Well, we want to reach young women, right? We know the mission of the Hormone Genius Podcast is to reach women, to educate and empower them to be the genius of their hormones. Well, this is a place where we could reach a lot of women. Jamie and I are also Catholic, and so this conference for us holds special meaning to our own faith. So this is going to be an incredible event, and so this podcast really is going to touch on the theme of what Seek 25 wants us to touch on, and that theme is follow me. And it also has a saint that is the sponsor of that podcast or of the Seek 25. And that's Saint Joan of Arc, which I am pumped for. So, Jamie, let's just reflect back on that experience last year and you know kind of all the incredible women that we met.
Speaker 3:It was. It was crazy. I know, Teresa, you had been there a couple of times before or the year before last, and so I remember you trying to prepare me. You know you just kept saying you know, just be prepared, be prepared. A lot of women want this information and I could only imagine, but it was literally impossible for me to actually prepare. What I experienced last year. It was insane.
Speaker 3:So many women, so many women were lined up to ask questions, to talk to us about their hormones. The number of times we sat down with women to answer questions about their hormones. We had, like this really cute little couch and table and coffee table set up with Guiding Star. We did a collaborative booth space and so we ended up calling it the Women's Healthcare Living Room. You know, and I'm sure people you know told their friends and then they came and was asked, they were asking us questions. So that was I think that was one of my people you know told their friends and then they came and was asked, they were asking us questions. So that was. I think that was one of my like my biggest, amazing, wonderful memories, not to mention, of course, that we did our live podcast and we were able to give. How many books did we give away of yours?
Speaker 2:I think we gave away 150. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 150 books we gave of yours, and it was just. It was encouraging to witness the amount of energy and excitement around the work we do and what I was also surprised by and maybe this is a little prideful, teresa, I don't know but going in I thought, oh yeah, everyone's gonna know about hormone genius. You know I'm like, oh, all the women are just going to know. But no, they didn't. But guess what you better believe they left knowing. If they didn't know what coming in, they knew it coming out. So we're so excited to podcast again live. Okay, that's my little recap. What about you, teresa? How did last year compared to the year prior? And then, how do you anticipate even this year being maybe different than our experience last year?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean so it was at the location of St Louis two years in a row, so the previous year, so that would have been 2023. I was there on behalf of the Vitae Foundation and I think I mean we did this survey where we asked women about what they knew about their bodies, what they knew about their hormones. We got into the issue of what they knew about birth control and also kind of the, the areas that really touch women's heart, and we were floored by that information and I'll never forget that. You know, we also handed out a ton of books, but women just sat in front of me. You're talking like I mean, we didn't have a huge area, but we had this kind of it was an open auditorium. There were probably a hundred to 150 women gathered to listen to me just kind of yell in this giant place about, you know, learning about their bodies and all of us. I think we're floored by kind of the passion that women have around this, this desire to know who they are as women, the desire to understand, kind of like, women's healthcare and birth control and how they intersect together and, um, so that led into the next year, jamie, with you, and then we got to do this live podcast, which was absolutely amazing. And then we got to do this live podcast, which was absolutely amazing, and we had hundreds of people join us in that. My two sons were there and it was women and men, and, of course, men want to, they want to learn this information too.
Speaker 2:So you know this theme this year, jamie, for seek 25 in Salt Lake City, utah, which you should all join us there. You should all come because it's going to be amazing and it's just this incredible, happy, positive event for young people. Follow me, and I think, jamie, both of us have been sitting this morning particularly thinking about what does that mean to us? Follow me, and you know, for for me it kind of I go back to like when I was 15 and you know, feeling this kind of desire to have an influence on young people, even at that age, like I could sense that, that almost like people listen to me, that that I had a wisdom almost to share and that people would listen. And so even at a young age, I was kind of like, okay, like, and my mom would always say to much who has been given, much is expected, to much who has been given, much is expected. And for those of us who have faith and you know, grew up in a Christian, catholic background, you know that was it was something that pressed upon my heart. Yeah, and I think of mother Teresa. You know she has this quote.
Speaker 2:It's do not wait for leaders, do it alone. Person to person. Yeah, and that's what we do when we talk to women. You know we're reaching women through this podcast, but what we really want is to change women's lives person to person, and I know for you, jamie, you know, starting the Fiat Institute, that's what you're doing. So we want to change women's lives because we have this wisdom that we think really God has given us in this area about the feminine genius, yeah, and we know that this wisdom needs to be shared and we're putting our stake in the ground. That's my St Joan of Arc thing. We are putting our stake in the ground and we are saying we're going to do this.
Speaker 3:Right, I love that. And just even with that theme of follow me, you know, we think sometimes life can be stressful and being a woman today, you know, in this time of age where there's such confusion, it can seem stressful and I think sometimes I need to remind myself well, maybe the reason it's stressful is because I'm not looking to someone to lead me, you know, for the Lord to say and for the theme to be follow me. What does that mean? Well, that means to be receptive to him. You know, to be receptive, to look, to be aware, to be present in the moment. You know, and fear and anxiety and overwhelm can always kind of overcome us. And in that, we know, from the hormone perspective, when we're overwhelmed or anxious or worried, our cortisol response increases and therefore we cannot access our prefrontal cortex, which brings about a calm, creative, executive thinking way. So if we're always stressed, it's hard to be present, but if we know, simply, we need to keep our head up and just follow, follow. What does that mean? How do we follow?
Speaker 3:I know my husband and I were talking I think it was last week and we were just, you know, talking about our faith and just how noisy life can be. And you know, we are just kind of talking about a very basic thing, of when we pray, it's not just noise or thoughts coming out of us, there needs to be also a silence, like a receptive. It's a conversation. So the only way we can have a conversation is if we give time to listen, to listen, and so in that listening, I feel like we can more, I guess, easily follow more. So follow him, you know. So that's what that theme to me means, of follow me, and I think, of course, St Joan of Arc is an incredible example of that theme, and so let's dig into that.
Speaker 2:Teresa, can you give our listeners a little kind of overview of St Joan of Arc, and I can share a little bit too, but let's start there, just so our listeners can get a sense of why this is important. Yeah, st Joan of Arc, you know. She was born in the early 1400s in a small village in France, and from a very young age, you know, what people would have said about her was that she was simple, she was quiet, she was somewhat shy, which is interesting, because when you look at what she actually accomplished, you would not think that to be the case. When you look at what she actually accomplished, you would not think that to be the case, but that she really thrived on work. So she often was found in the fields tending towards cattle and sheep, and at the time she was a young girl and especially through her adolescence, there was this war where England was trying to take over France, and I'm not a historian, but they called it the Hundred Years' War. At some point in her early life she started to experience voices and visions that she would have called from, you know, from God.
Speaker 2:She had other saints visit her St Catherine, I remember, was one of them, st Margaret and St Michael the archangel, and at some point it was almost like she was being called up, you know, called up to fight for what she knew was right and good, and that was to preserve her people, to preserve her country. And you know, she ended up in war dressed as a man and because that's of course at that time, she had to kind of like disguise herself and she was able to lead her country to eventually, you know, victory against England and preserve France as its own nation. And then she was captured in that journey and she was put to trial for being a heretic, because she dressed as a man. So think about, back then, I mean, like it was very wrong to dress in the opposite sex, it was very wrong to dress in the opposite sex. And so she was put on trial for that as well as, um, you know, a conspiracy theorist, and they called her a witch and all sorts of things.
Speaker 2:And that trial went on for a very long time, um, at least over a year, and eventually she was put to death and burned at the stake and in the early I think it was 1900, 1909, she was considered canonized at that point or at least declared blessed on her way to sainthood Because of this incredible kind of standing up for her faith and she was. She was very powerful and the country and many people across the world heard about her, heard about her strength, heard about what she did and you know it would have been a great, great story at the time and you always wonder how stories kind of we don't have social media back then, they don't even have practically newspapers, but her story became wildly known and which allowed her to become a saint in the Catholic church.
Speaker 3:That is such a beautiful, incredible story known and which allowed her to become a saint in the Catholic church. That is such a beautiful, incredible story and I want to write a letter to Hollywood, like let's make a good movie about St Joan of Arc I mean, maybe there already is and if so, I haven't watched it but let's like give this lady some more ammo, in terms of metaphorically speaking, because of you know ammo. But this is what I also think is so interesting is she was just 17. So you're saying you know she was this young woman. She was a young, peasant, simple woman, and what I think is really, really cool is that she wore white armor in battle and carried a banner instead of a sword during the battles.
Speaker 3:So what I think is just beautiful about that is, again, we think about the sword and we think about battle, and we think about protecting our country aggressively with physicality, and that is true of war. But what I think is so amazing about this is that this banner depicted Christ in judgment, which inspired her troops and set her apart, and so as like, as you know, more of a holy figure rather than a typical warrior. So in a sense, it was her impact on the troops that gave them strength, which I think is so beautiful Because, again, that's a capture and, like the essence of her feminine genius, that was able to do that. Even though she was dressed as a man, she still held that, you know that, that God-given power to be an inspiration, um, even though people likely didn't even know. So I think that is just an incredible story, uh, teresa, and one that more people should, should know about, for sure wanted to dress as a man by her own just person.
Speaker 2:As a woman, she, she dressed as a man because she was doing it to protect her modesty and she actually, on trial, said that the reason why she was dressing as a man is because when she dressed as a woman, that she was being molested in the um, in the prison. And that came from information I got from the history, uh, uh, historycom. So, um, I thought that was very interesting because, you know, you just think women again, uh, in in this beauty that we have our feminine design, the beauty of the body, again, it makes us vulnerable. And to to protect herself, she dressed in a way that protected her modesty. I just, it wasn't, I'd never thought about that before as being the reason. I, you know you always think of it just in the fact that she, she had to disguise herself just to get into war, right, and but there was more to it than that. It was really protecting her womanhood and at that time, you know, she felt like that was the only way that she could Wow.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, oh Lord, have mercy. And yeah, and we think just this day and age about how, you know, there does seem maybe some safety, not kind of showing up as a woman, and that's our goal as hormone genius podcasters is to to really give women the space to celebrate their womanhood. And we have to call men for hire too, and again, that's a whole other episode. But such a beautiful patron saint of this event. And let's talk a little bit now about kind of how Jones, her feminine genius, the strength, this heroism, how does that, how can women hearing this, and even men be taking what we can learn about Joan and be applying it to our own life, whether it has to do with our womanhood or hormones or just life as a Christian?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think about St John Paul II, and you know what he wrote about the feminine genius. So I would have imagined like we could apply the feminine genius to St Joan of Arc, but also then think about every woman and our nature and like how we can really, you know, just really go to the heart of who we are and make the you always say it, jamie kind of like the fruits come from the roots of who we are. So we want to like fill up who we are in the roots first, because we cannot bear good fruit without it. You'll say it so much better than I will, but, um, so, receptivity, sensitivity, generosity, maternity and awareness of God's entrustment, and so this I want to start with the last one awareness of God's entrustment, like knowing that it was through woman. If you're a Christian, you believe that you know that the savior of the world came through woman. Yeah, that that God entrusted the savior of humanity through a woman's body and that each one of us can emulate that. That God is entrusting us in some way to be with human beings in a very special way and to bear fruit into the world very special way, and to bear fruit into the world, and that, of course, in the most biological way and in our hormones that we are given. That gives us the capacity for maternity, which is the the ability to not only either physically give birth to a human being, but it's also spiritual as well. And that's why the church, you know, when we talk about motherhood, we talk about biological motherhood and spiritual motherhood, because God, god and his great wisdom, knows that life can be brought into the world in many, many ways, right, and that we have a generosity in who we are as women. I mean, think about who are the first people. Again, hospitals, schools, they're run by women, and and the church really is the foundation of social justice. Yeah, Right, I mean, we would not have schools, we would not have hospitals, we would not have these institutions that preserve humanity without our faith. And so women are uniquely generous in their time and in their service to humanity.
Speaker 2:We are sensitive, we want to include everyone, we want to understand who people are. We know everyone is different. We want to meet people where they're at, and we're receptive to first God in our own hearts, but also receptive to the vocation that he is calling us to. And St Joan of Arc, she listened stronger than she was, more receptive than most of us will ever be right. A saint is someone who does something extraordinary, and that's why we declare them saints in the church, but each one of us is called to that in our own way. So when we think about that today, jamie and I, our kind of you know, st Joan in the Ark moment is to create the Hormone Genius podcast, right, yep, to create this and to create you know you doing Fiat Institute to really kind of put that in action, put these feminine genius virtues into the world, amen.
Speaker 3:And what I think is so important to understand about that, as a woman and as husbands, brothers, boyfriends of women or sons of women, is just to know that there's so much strength. There's so much strength in that. And one of my favorite quotes of St Joan of Arc is she wasn't afraid that she was born to do this. You know, I'm not afraid. I was born to do this, and that can only really come if we fully are. You know, hand ourselves over to the will of God. You know that conviction of hers, because she felt so clearly called by God as a 17-year-old, simple, peasant, young woman to lead France to victory, felt so called by God that she knew she was born for that moment and to be so clear on that. And again, you know, we hear this sometimes and I may be making a general statement, but women are, we are more receptive. You know, like you're saying it's this beautiful gift. You know we hear this sometimes and I may be making a general statement, but women are, we are more receptive. You know, like you're saying, it's this beautiful gift. You know, like, this faith of woman is such a beautiful, beautiful thing. And so I think that's important because I think about even you know, when we lift our hands up. I always think about that, teresa. I think about you. Know, if I'm not sure which turn to take, maybe in my business or in my personal life or whatever. You know, we don't have to know it all, but we can surrender.
Speaker 3:And the way I physically like to posture myself is with my hands up. It just seems simple, I know, but like, just like I'm, you know, holding something in my hands, my palms are up to the Lord and I just say I'm going to receive you. I don't know what I need, but my palms are up to the Lord and I just say I'm going to receive you. I don't know what I need, but my hands are up, rather than me knowing everything or knowing the best decision to make or whatever. You know, if that's me, if I think I know, then my hands are down, I'm not receiving anything.
Speaker 3:So I always think of that posture, of my hands being up. So for those of you listening today, whether you're listening on the Focus podcast or the Hormone Genius podcast, I just encourage you to think to yourself. If there is a difficult moment, or you feel like imposter syndrome, or you're trying to look for a job. You're graduating from college, let's say and it's just confusing and scary just lift your hands up. I mean, let him pour into you. And again, maybe that's just too, too simple, but for me I always that always helps ground me.
Speaker 2:That's great, Jamie. I was thinking, as you were talking there, about feminism too. Yeah, and you know what we've learned through Leah Jacobson and holistic feminism. But oh my goodness, St Joan of Arc, what a feminist.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, big time big time feminist.
Speaker 2:Just say that. Quote again, Jamie, because it's such a feminist statement that what was your favorite?
Speaker 3:quote from St Joan Um, I'm not afraid. I was born to do this.
Speaker 2:I'm not afraid. I was born to do this. So everyone out there you know you were born to do this and it doesn't matter, like Jamie and I want you to know, if you're not Catholic, if you're not even Christian, I mean it's okay, like we are inviting you into this space to hear that message, just that simple phrase, because I think that that's not unique to any sort of religious faith. That is just you have a gift within you that you can give to the world, and we're all called to that, and I think we all want to leave something to this world. When we leave, someday that someone will say gosh, didn't she do something amazing, wasn't she? She really gave her heart. You know, it doesn't have to be something crazy big. It could be like Mother Teresa, it's like the little things that add up to changing lives person by person. But we're all called to that.
Speaker 2:Holistic feminism is seeing the feminine design and knowing that it is a gift to the world, but preserving who we are, preserving who we are and that's the message, jamie, that we're going to bring to Seek 2025 is that we're going to talk about your hormones for real as women, but what we want you to know that your body was made good by God and you don't need to alter or suppress or put chemicals in your body in order to live in this world.
Speaker 2:So you have the ability to understand the way God created your body and we're going to give you the tools to do that and to understand the biology. And we're also going to give you the tools to understand that there are other ways to treat women's health conditions without using chemicals, which I think is a radical concept in this, in this generation that we live in, because so many women are given synthetic hormones in order to treat women's health issues, and we want to share the good news that there's an alternative way to do it, there's a restorative way to approach your body, and we're excited to share that with you. Come to 2025 Seek, because your mind is going to be blown by that information Totally.
Speaker 3:And you know, as we close up this episode, teresa, I just want us to be aware and I'm sure we are, I'm sure we're all aware that we are in a battle, just like Joan was in a battle you know of again fighting for, you know, victory for her country. But in physicality there were flying arrows. You know there was, you know, violence. And when we think about how that might apply to this day and age, well, we can just know and recognize that there's, you know, a spiritual war. There's a spiritual war and you know we can think about how we can protect ourselves from those kind of those quote unquote arrows. And really it's to shield ourself and to protect ourself in the word, and again, for those of you listening in the Hormone Genius Podcast, as healthy women we can be integrative, we're integrative, we're body, mind and spirit. So, no matter what your worldview might be, just having a faith and knowing that true balance and health is a balance of the body, mind and spirit, but just knowing from Ephesians 6, chapter 10 through 17,. If you have a Bible and you want to look this up, or if you don't have a Bible and you want to look it up online, go for it. But we can be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. We can put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil's schemes.
Speaker 3:Because, ladies, there is a war over our womanhood. There just is, there just is. We are in a battle. So we can be like our own versions of Saint Joan of Arc in this battle, saying yes to our body, saying yes to our vocation. You know, saying yes, lifting your hands up to the Lord and saying please use me, god, in whatever way you will, and just being that again, feminine genius of receiving the Lord, even in times that it seems scary and unsettling. So, again, I'm so excited, teresa, to make another debut at Seek 25 for our Hormone Genius live podcast episode. I can't wait, teresa and I are looking forward to meeting many of you. Come with your questions, come with episode suggestions. Even we're just excited to talk with many of you who will be there.
Speaker 2:And Jamie, I just want people to know if they're interested in SEEK, you can go right now to seekfocusorg slash Salt Lake City. So seekfocusorg slash Salt Lake City will get you there and it is January 1st through the 5th in 2025 at the Salt Palace Convention Center, where we are going to encounter you and transform lives, and we are going to be in community with you at SEEK 2025 in Salt Lake City. So join us. We're so excited to be there and also we're going to be passing out at least another 150 books of the happy girl's guide to being whole and hopefully, maybe another 150 of holistic feminism as well, by Leah Jacobson. But be there, because you can get free books but a ton of great information and it's just an awesome experience. So thanks, jamie, I will see you there for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us for this episode. We hope you learned something and encountered Christ in some way. If you enjoy what we do, please subscribe and share this podcast with a friend. This helps us reach more people with and for Christ. Until next time, this is John Michael Peace.
