Why do we resist the quiet voice within?
Fear can sound like wisdom when it’s loud enough. That’s why I wanted to sit down with Toni LaMotta, a former nun who spent 16 years in a convent and still speaks with refreshing honesty about faith, silence, and spiritual growth.
We get into what it really means to follow an inner compass, how you recognize the difference between anxiety and guidance, and why so many of us resist the quiet voice within, even when we say we want God to lead.
We also dig into tools you can actually use. Toni shares how journaling for self-discovery can become a daily practice of discernment, including structured methods that help you revisit your story and hear what’s true underneath the noise. Then she introduces two frameworks that stick: the “three faces of God” (beyond us, beside us, within us) and the distinction between the “barking dog” voice and the voice of spirit. If you’ve ever thought, “I knew I shouldn’t have done that,” this conversation gives you language for why that happens and how to respond with compassion instead of self-attack.
From there, we bring in the Enneagram as a map from ego patterns to your essence, especially for high achievers who feel trapped in doing instead of being. I also share my ICU miracle and why surrender is not just a crisis move, it’s a daily spiritual practice, including what it looked like to experience peace in grief after my father’s death.
If you’re searching for divine purpose, Christian encouragement, and practical ways to release doubt, press play and stay with us to the end. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs clarity, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
To connect with or work with Toni, visit her website tonilamotta.com and grab the PDF Why Can’t I Trust Myself?
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry, and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey light bringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release. Wow, what a story. We have a story for you on this show coming up next. She’s a former nun. So we know Catholics. I’ve I was I was a former Catholic, so I understand. I understand part of this journey. And she left because she wanted to understand her inner compass. We all have a voice within. The voice within is what guides us, that’s what leads us into our light. That’s why at the beginning of the podcast, I was like, hey, light bringers, we all have light within. We’re all spirit-led, if we allow him to lead us, right? Otherwise, we fall, we go to the other, to the other inner conflict we’ve got going on, and that is the flesh, right? The flesh, the sins of the flesh. The Catholics understand this very, very well. And since we’re right at the start of what most people call Easter weekend, the Christians call resurrection weekend, it’s a very powerful weekend to have this particular interview. I I find his sense of humor really funny at times. God has a really joyful sense of humor. Don’t you agree, Tony? You’ve known him for quite a long time.
Absolutely.
So share with us that amazing story of transformation, what you’re here to share with the world.
Well, very interesting. You know, it it’s only recently that I’ve even begun talking about this because it goes back many, many years when I spent 16 years in a convent. So we’re talking significant amount of my my early life. I was 17 when I entered and 33 when I left. So it was quite a quite a journey. And I have to say, I’m gonna put a little bracket around it. I loved it, and I gained so much. You know, when you’re in silence all the time, you learn to speak to the divine, you know, you learn how to communicate and to have a relationship. So unlike many other Catholics, I had a very positive experience for the most part. I even went to a Catholic seminary. I wanted to be a priest from the time I was a little girl, and you know, that obviously never happened and may never, but um, so I I went in the convent because that was as far as I could go, but I was always knowing that there was a connection, and the seminary I went to was amazing. You know, one of the things you’ll get a laugh out of this. Say the moral theology class began with any of you who are considering divorcing your spouse, please don’t murder them because we forgive murder, we don’t forgive divorce. I mean, and that you know, I told you you’d get a laugh out of that. It made me realize I was home. That was a seminary that was it was brilliant, and I am so grateful for that background and that experience. However, I was living a life that was rule-based, was uh following someone else’s command and the way you should do things, and somehow there were times in my life that that just wasn’t working for me, and I didn’t always agree with what the church was teaching. So it was hard to be a representative, and there are a lot of reasons, but eventually I did leave and I began pursuing you know, who am I? What am I here for? What’s life about? And I discovered that voice within. And I discovered it through reading, through workshops. You and I, before we began this today, were talking a little bit about journaling, and one of the things that I did was an intensive journal class. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the name Ira Progoff, but if you love writing and journaling, let me share that with you because the journal process that Progoff teaches is like being your own therapist. You go back through your life, you record different memories, you record dialogues with people, you work through processes. It’s an amazing thing. I have since I don’t teach the intensive journal exactly as it is. I’ve made a lot of changes, but I do teach that as one of the modules that I teach people. Learning to hear your own inner voice through writing is amazing. And especially through that kind of process. Um, I don’t want to keep going on if you want to say something about your own journal process, because I think that has been paramount in your life.
It has because as we were talking prior to the interview, I shared with Tony that I was Catholic. I was raised Catholic from the time I was in elementary school all the way through high school. I went to Catholic high school. Yet I never had a relationship with that inner voice or that inner compass that Tony wants to talk about today. I never once opened up the Bible to read his word and to have him reveal to me. And right after my divorce, because prior to the divorce, I had turned away from God for 10 years. 10 years. That first marriage, I turned away from him because as we were attending Catholic Church, I would I experienced the hypocrisy like with people that would go to church and claim to love him and claim to be like him and then turn around. The minute they left the church, it was like Jekyll and Hyde. And that experience, when you’re young and you’re inexperienced in him, can easily you can easily translate that as something that God does that you blame him for. When in fact it is the failings of a human race that that cause that to happen. God does not do that. God gives us free will, and but he’s always there, he’s always within us when we accept him, you know, when we when we want to seek him, we find him. When we when we seek him with all of our heart. And and for me, my heart was in my writing. So as soon as my first husband asked for a divorce, and I was like thrown into the throes of darkness, because it was a very dark chapter. I was a single mother now. I we had a little boy, he was four, and I I really felt the responsibility because I was I’m a firstborn daughter and uh Mexican to top it off. And that was a recipe for six like total disaster in that I I took on responsibility as if it were my own, like everything felt because of me. And and so God was trying to keep me from going down that path, that rabbit hole. And so He I remember hearing a voice very profoundly in my heart space that said, You and I need to get to know each other again. You need to know who I really am. And and I just felt compelled, like my soul felt compelled to start writing and journals. And I remember that time I good buddy of mine, uh Umberto Caballero, he was the photographer of my first wedding, very highly spiritual guy, and he had taken various courses, voracious reader, and he led me to a book called The Artist Way by Julia Cameron, and she does these workshops in New York, and that’s what the book was based on. And she talked about journaling three pages a day, whether you felt like it or not. And even if you didn’t feel like it, you would write the line. I don’t feel like writing or I have nothing to write about for three pages straight. And what that was teaching you was just to sit in silence with yourself, sit and write and declutter as much as you could. And I started to declutter, and in those pages, he started to reveal himself to me, reveal who he really was, like where my journey of turning away, like why I fell into that temptation of turning away from him, why that was easy for me to do. And and he was very gentle and he was very kind. And the more I wrote, the more I felt him in my heart space. And the more I decluttered my mind of all the craziness going on in the outside world, the more I would hear him. But it is a whisper and it is an inner voice, and I do want you to speak more on that because I know that you’re actively working in that, isn’t it?
Right, Tony? Oh, it is, and and part of what I do is I do a hybrid program where I both coach and do training with people who are having a hard time listening and trusting themselves. And so there’s just so many things that are going through my mind as you’re speaking there. And one of them is, you know, this is interesting, and I don’t know where this will sit with your belief and understanding. But a number of years ago, I’m I met a man named Paul Smith who was a Baptist minister, so we came from very different background. But he he wrote a book, he wrote several books, but he talked about the three faces of God, and this is something that I think is really helpful for people because most of us miss at least one of them. The three faces of God are the God beyond us, the God beside us, and the God within us. So the God beyond us is the one that maybe you studied in the or you were learning about in the Catholic Church in the earlier days. It’s you know, the God that can’t be known. The you know, we talk about God like far out, and you know, the Father out there, and we have, you know, no relationship. And then when we learn that we can relate to God, we have the God beside us, and that’s when we develop a relationship with Jesus, or perhaps with Mary for some people, or the saints or angels, or all of the different ways we can connect with the divine spirit, and then there is the God within, and this is what many people miss, and that you know, we are called children of God, and children of elephants are elephants, children of dogs are dogs, so children of God are gods, and we don’t like we don’t use that term very easily because we don’t want to confuse it, it’s not I am God, but I am that drop of the ocean is still the ocean, so I am that divine, so I can trust what’s inside of me is God speaking when I’m really listening, and then the other thing that’s coming to my mind is a teaching uh of a woman named Sonia Choquette, who is a brilliant, brilliant teacher, and one of my favorites. I took 13 courses with her, so I really loved her work. But one of the main things she teaches to hear that voice is that we all have two voices going on at all times. And I remember hearing the devil and the angel. I like her description a little bit better. She talks about the barking dog, and she asks all of us to name the barking dog. That voice within that says, You should be doing this. Why are you doing that? One of the that’s the barking dog. It’s loud, it’s putting us down, it’s doing all those things. And then there’s the voice of spirit, the voice of God, the voice of the divine. And she said, name that, even name that part. I call mine Joy Sparkle. You’ll notice I wear sparkles on my eyes. So, Joy Sparkle, when Joy Sparkle is speaking, everyone listens, it’s amazing. And I hear. So, one of the first things to do is start noticing which voice is speaking. When the divine speaks, or when the that that quiet voice speaks, sometimes it’s not what we want to hear. And that’s what people miss. They think, you know, you’re always going to hear love and roses. And sometimes you hear things that are like, whoa, this needs to be changed, this, but you hear it with such love and such compassion that it becomes easy to follow. So when listening to the voice, pick up the energy, is what I’m inviting people to do. First of all, within yourself, see which voice is speaking. And when that voice is loud and screaming at you and telling you all the wrong things or asking you to be cautious, step it aside. Thank you very much. I’ll listen to you later. If you have some good advice, I want to hear it, but you know, not right now. And so that’s what the first thing that I teach people, and then to also pick up energy in other people. You can pick up who to listen to because you know, God has a sense of humor, sometimes speaks through road signs. You know, should I be doing this? And all of a sudden you see a sign that says yes, or you know, all kinds of funny things that can happen. And so the voice of God is constantly speaking to us when we allow it. And to me, it’s uh, and and I didn’t always listen, I didn’t always know. But how many people have you heard say, Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have done that?
Tons. I heard a lot of my coaching practice because I coach for the church. Uh people come in and say, Well, how do you know? How do you discern? And I’m like, discern is a very big word. So let’s break it down for people. And you broke it down beautifully. I love your definition of how you name it. The way that it came through for me in my book, In Faith, I thrive, finding joy through God’s Master Plan, was there’s always two identities. And Paul talks about this in the New Testament in Galatians 5:17. You have the sins of the flesh is on one side, and the so this is from the biblical perspective for those listening, and you’re spirit-led. Which one are you gonna abide by? And and you see it across the world, like whichever one you feed is the one that you project, right? So if you’re constantly feeding your sins, you’re gonna project your sins. You’re not gonna be led by the spirit, you’re gonna be led by your doubt. That’s why the podcast is called Release Doubt, because God is not in doubt, God is in joy, God is in love, God is in peace. When you look at the fruit of the spirit, this is what he’s like revealed to me. Who we are is so different. The person he created us to be, our higher self, what a lot of people call the higher consciousness, is very different than who you are right now. When you start that journey with him, what I found to be true, Tony, and maybe you can speak a little bit more on this, is it was a very different person that he was calling me to be. Like my first act, I was a high achiever. That’s why I work with high achieving women who I’m trying to guide into their divine purpose, into their higher calling, because we attach our worth and our significance to the amount of money that we make and the achievements we achieve. And that’s not who he’s calling us to be, to be. And I’m saying that very specifically. We’re not called to do, we are called to be, to embody that light, right? To embody his fruit into the world, to embody the skill set that he so uniquely gifted us with, because we are part of that body of Christ. Like you and I, we’re not here to compete with each other, Tony. We’re here to go collaborate because you have a skill set that I don’t have, and that’s okay. And that’s beautiful, actually. I love your skill set. I love that it’s so different than mine, and yet they’re so similar. There’s alignment in what we’re called to do. We’re both light warriors. That’s why your name for him is joy sparkles. I know that because wow, joy is what we’re all seeking, right? Some people are just like, journey to joy. I’m like, nope, joy in the journey, because the journey, there’s always joy, because he told us we’re gonna have trouble in this world, we’re gonna have trials and tribulations. But I’m also gonna give you gifts of joy, and you gotta be ready to receive them. And if you’re too busy with your doubt and too busy doing instead of being, you’re gonna miss them. And these moments are small, they’re really small moments, like small moments like being outside, and the sun is beaming on your on your head, and you’re walking your dog, and you cat catch a glimpse of a cardinal and that beautiful bird, and that’s joy, and that’s what he’s gifting us every single day. Now, when you were speaking, this is what came to me. And and so I know the Holy Spirit is in the room. Abide in me as I abide in you. That’s why we’re one with him, and it’s not to say that we’re God, no. The honor and the glory is to him and only to him, but he is within us. That’s why the Holy Spirit is within us when we accept and we say that you know Christ is our savior, he is within us all. That light, that capacity, that authority, that’s inside of all of us. Yet we don’t tap into it. Why do you think that is, Tony? Why do you think people resist this so much?
You know, this is an interesting thing because um one of the things that I am very involved in is it’s what’s known as the enneagram. And so I want to bring that in a little bit here. The enneagram is both a personality typing system as well as a clear path to spiritual growth. Not religious, it doesn’t fit under any, you know, it doesn’t limit anyone, but it describes the difference between what we might call our shadow and who we came here to be, or our personality and our essence. It’s just what you were saying before. Who we are is so much more than what we think we are. What you described before and said, you know, it’s not about the success that we make and making money and being out there. That’s a personality that’s called type three. One personality that they think it is much more important to do than to be. But every personality type has a challenge. We all come, let me put it this way: we all come to this world in perfection. We we come from the divine, you know. Look at a little baby. Everybody smiles when you see a baby because you see that perfection. And then no matter how good our parents were, there’s some kind of break, and we feel like we’re losing that connection and we’ve lost the connection with the divine. And so, what we do, that’s how our ego, this is psychology psychology, right? That’s how our ego develops. Our ego forms because we’re trying to get back to the divine, and so we think that there is something we can do to kind of get back to that true essence, and those and in all the different religions, it’s taught, and this goes back to the early Greeks, it’s not something that’s new, that there are nine different ways that happens. So let me go through them real quickly. Type one thinks there’s a perfect way to be, and they’re never going to reach it, so they’re struggling to reach it, and they’re struggling for you to reach it. They’re probably gonna criticize you because you’re not there, but perfectionism is their challenge. However, they see the world as perfect as it really is. So they have, you know, both of these have pluses and minuses. Type two are the people who come here seeing everybody else’s need and they fulfill that need and they forget their own. They are the greatest lovers in the world when they get healthy. So when you let go of the ego and really become the essence, they’re unconditional lovers. But most of the time they’re out there manipulating because they want you to love them because they’re loving you. They give in order to receive. Type three I mentioned are the people who think that it’s more important to be whatever is called for so that I can be successful, and they usually become their. Successful. They show us how to be successful, but their challenge is you know in accepting who they really are and seeing their essence. Type four thinks nobody’s like them, they’re the most unique people in the world, and they are usually into pretty high drama. And they, I mean, you’ve all met people like that who want to go deep. They really see the beauty of the world, and they can teach us that when they don’t get into their fixated pattern. And their fixated pattern says, you know, you don’t understand me. I, you know, and they envy other people. Type five are uh we might call the bookworms of the world. These are the people who think knowledge is the answer to everything, and they go and you know, if you ask them how do you play tennis, they’ll read a book about it rather than go play. You know, it’s a and the type fives, though, when they go deep, they are they are incredible wisdom and knowledge. Type six are the people that I work most with, actually, because these are the people who always ask the what-ifs. You know, they’re seeing you know what’s going to happen when the other shoe drops. They’re the people who are constantly worried about uh, do I belong? Where do I fit in? Who should I trust? Should I trust? Wait a minute, have you seen that? They see the opposite. They are also the most loyal friends you will ever have. And when they really trust, they totally trust. And so they have that really every one of these have a relationship with God, too. So you can imagine they’re like, should I trust you? Or you know, type sevens are the the joy people of the world who bring unconditional joy, but they are enthusiastic, see possibility, and they totally avoid anything painful. So they miss out very often on what could go wrong, which is the realistic view of life because they’re seeing nothing but positivity. I’m a type 7, I can talk about that a lot, but type eight is the one that are here to show what the vitality of God is like. They are they they walk in the room and you know they’re there, they can be the boss of everybody, and they’re also the best when they’re healthy, they’re the best people taking care of everyone else. And so, and then there’s type 9. My mom was a type 9, thinking everybody else is more important than me. I I kind of put myself last. In fact, I forget myself in looking at everyone else. However, they are the most, um they’re at the top of the anneagram diagram because they are here to show unconditional love, and they really see life as meaningful. So that was a very quick explanation, but every one of them you ask, like, how do we that’s how we lose ourselves because we we think that’s what we need, and it’s fascinating because everyone who studies that says, Oh my god, I see myself, and usually don’t like it when we first see it, but then we say, Ah, I can also see underneath those patterns is my essence. You know, I’m here to bring joy and enthusiasm to the world. Hey, that’s exactly what the world needs right now: possibility, vision, you know, it’s a great gift. So I want to be that. I don’t want to be the fixated seven that’s going to get caught up in things. And so when we learn a system like that, it’s really helpful to say, oh, now I can see how I can grow. And it’s it’s not fixing ourselves, it’s not getting rid of anything, but it’s recognizing the pattern underneath, and that’s why I call it the inner compass. The inner compass leads us to our essence, it’s truly our God center, our the person that we are meant to be. Um, one of the courses I teach is called The Art of Quantum Living, and we actually look at all of those messages we got at children that created these shadow beliefs about ourselves. And in the very first week, we do an exercise where we I’ll show you my little card. You write down your shadow of what you see is a challenge, and then you write who I came here to be. And I keep it on my desk at all times, remind myself this is who I am. I am wisdom, I am vision, I am strength. You know, each of these things is um it’s an amazing. So I you can tell I love what I do, and I love working with people, and and I’m watching them like shift before my eyes uh without a struggle. It’s like it’s okay to be where you are right now. Yeah, but just look at the mirror a little differently.
You shared so much, but there’s one question that you shared the information you shared at the beginning, the introduction. What did silence teach you? And that’s my question for you because I think that’s the question from the Holy Spirit.
Wonderful. Several things. One, in the silence is when I can really listen. You know, when my mind is chattering, I can’t hear what it is that uh divine is saying. You know, the um silence teaches me. Let me give it give myself a second here. I believe that there is a wisdom in every one of us, and it’s the silence that teaches us that wisdom. You know, we when we’re when we’re speaking without thinking, it’s the chat or the noise. But when we allow ourselves to go into that silence, the silence also gave me a relationship with the divine. I, you know, there’s nobody else to talk to. So I I literally learned, I mean, people used to say, you know, how can you live in silence? I’m like, I’m never alone. I know that at all times. And so I learned that at an early age, and I’m very grateful for that. It just was, you know, I think that’s why people go on retreats to spend some time, you know, like you use the word decluttering, and and I also, by the way, use the artist’s way. I still write three pages every day. And it’s it’s a way of like, you gotta let that stuff that wants to speak, let it speak, but then don’t pay attention to it, move on to what’s really going on. So hopefully that answers you. But that’s it.
So much answered it because we release it to God. There’s that app pause, and there’s there’s a meditation on there that says, I release everyone and everything to you, Lord. I release everyone and everything to you, Lord. Because there’s things that we will not be able to control ever in this life, and it drives some people absolutely crazy when they can’t control it. I don’t know about you, but when I faced the greatest pivotal moment of my life was in 2012 when six doctors walked in my room. And I’ve I’ve shared this story multiple times on the podcast. It’s quite another thing when you are faced with death, which is one of the biggest fears out there. Death is only the beginning, though. Now I know that, but in those years I didn’t, and it was terrifying. It was terrifying to be faced with pulmonary embolisms, with Bub Curie syndrome, which for those listening, beautiful name for a syndrome, very deadly, by the way. It’s when uh blood clots the vena cava, and the vena cava is the main vein that takes blood out of the main organs and it was putting pressure on my liver. And I was about to go into acute liver failure and required transplant, and I was my boy was six at the time, and it was of all weekends, it was resurrection weekend, it was Easter weekend. This was not Good Friday, it was like Saturday of that weekend when I faced the six doctors on Easter Sunday morning of resurrection day for the Christians. The Lord made his presence very known in the ICU. And it was interesting because when I, as everyone, as I’ve said in the podcast, when you go into a hospital, they ask you what religion you are. And at that time, I was in between religions, I was in between faiths, but I put Catholic down because that’s what I had been for so long. And so a woman with a Catholic diocese walked into my room that morning, and I still remember so vividly what she was wearing. She was wearing this two-piece shamrock green suit, and she looked at her papers and she said, Sylvia, I’m here to pray with you. Do you want to pray with me? And the doctors had explained the night before to my parents, not to me, not in so many words, that they expected me to die on the table if what the therapy they had given me the night before had failed. So I was really facing like a real I needed a miracle. I really desperately needed one. And so I agreed to the prayer. And we formed a circle because my boyfriend at the time, who became my husband later, uh, was in the room. And we start saying the our father. And the part where it says, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, it was Tony. The the love I felt in that room was unlike any love I had ever felt in my whole life. And I get chills talking about it because I was cradled like a baby in his arms. The warmth and the gentleness that I felt in that moment, I I can’t adequately describe in words. I’ve tried multiple times as an author in my book in Faith I Thrive, Finding Joy through God’s Master Plan. I attempted to do it multiple ways. Nothing comes close to that love. Nothing. Not here on earth, anyways. And a peace washed over me, and then knowing that I had received my second chance at life because I had begged them the night before. When they were rushing me from my my room, my normal room that they had admitted me to to ICU. I remember begging them. I said, if if you save me, I will, you know, we always make these these um these deals, I think, you know, as human beings. We’re always negotiating. And I and I was very honest with him. I said, Lord, if if you give me a chance for this for this life, if if I may, if it fits in with your will and your purpose, please give me a second chance. And if you give it to me, I will devote my life to you, to your plan, whatever that is, for my life. I will I will surrender and I will submit to you. And I had just surrendered to him in that moment when the six doctors are there and they’re describing everything that’s gonna happen. I remember closing my eyes, Tony, and falling into God’s arms in full surrender. I said, you know, you’re in control. You are in control, you are it for me. I don’t trust the medical community right now. They they don’t trust themselves, they don’t trust that I’m gonna thrive the night, anyways. So I’m I’m here, I’m your servant, and I I’m surrendering. And it’s in that desperate moment, I think, in that desperation, when we really see ourselves sometimes with the divine. Um, and that was my first instance, really understanding the value of surrender in that moment. What he taught me later in 2023 was surrender isn’t just in those moments, Sylvia, surrender is in daily life. You gotta surrender. You gotta surrender your your need to be perfect. Like you know, you were talking about who is it? Number one, it’s the number one in the enneogram that they’re like always wanting to be perfect. You gotta surrender that. There isn’t there’s no perfection, there is no control. I am it. I’m I’m the one that can come in and give you that that peace that you’re seeking, that joy, that love, that that kindness, gentleness, goodness, you know, that self-control, all these things that you’re seeking, I can give that to you easily. And I learned to surrender the control that I obviously didn’t have when my father received this terminal diagnosis. I I couldn’t, and I I had a mission and I had a role to play, and I just felt so overwhelmed at times because the grief was so great. And I was finally I was facing another fear, big fear in my love, which is to lose a parent. And he was my first parent to lose my mom still alive, thank God. And like yours, I think she does fall into number nine, but I think most Mexican mothers fall into that one because they they love to give. Oh my goodness, they don’t know how to receive at all. Um, and and then they it’s like that shadow self of them, like they want to give, give, give, give. And then sometimes they can be resentful of that giving, but that but they’re designed this way, you know, they’re like this this personality, right? Anyways, um, so facing that that other fear was a big thing for me. And he and he came through very quickly and said, I’m here. Like that book that you were describing, the the higher heaven, the one that we get taught in Catholic school, like the one, the unknown God, but he’s in heaven, and then you have the one that’s beside you. Well, he was beside me. That that faith sustains me concept. I had always heard that as a Catholic. I never understood that concept until 2023. Until that time, I did not understand because the day my father died, it was Father’s Day of 2024, and I felt peace. How do you do that? How do you feel peace in the midst of such grief? I mean, because I was crying. I I was crying, but I but his soul and I knew the moment my father’s body was just a body, and his soul had departed. I could sense it. Um and that that’s why I could be there, you know, when they zipped up my dad’s body and a body back, and my my son, my young son, was there because my father was like his dad, like he had grown up with my dad. And I’m I’m getting emotional, I’m not sure why this is coming out of me, but but I stood at the doorway because I wanted to protect my son, you know, and he was sitting there like touching my dad’s head, like to keep, I don’t know. He was just touching and and a lady was singing hymns, and I could stand there and just honor that moment, you know, and say goodbye. Um, and I wouldn’t have been able to do without him by my side, not not by my own understanding or my own knowledge of the world, that wouldn’t have been sufficient to sustain me. I would have fallen apart. And I was the one tasked to give his eulogy and sell at celebration of life and to write his obituary, which I did. I couldn’t have done that without him. Couldn’t. There’s no way. So I think the work that you do, Tony, the to where you guide people to understand that voice within, to know that we are not alone, that he is always with us. I think it’s one of the most important works out there, honestly. And I really want to know how I if I wanted to work with you, if I wanted to take your courses, how do I reach you? How do I find you? Um, do you have any books that you’ve written that you’ve published?
You know, the easiest thing is to go to my website and my team, T-O-N-I-L-A-M-O-T-T-A.com. And when you’re on the website, the first thing to do is to sign up for the mailing list because then you’ll hear about all the things that are happening. But when you sign up, I even send out I’m changing what I’ve been giving people. I’m giving people now a um a template to know why they’re not trusting themselves, why they can’t listen to their inner voice. So there is a kind of a little quiz that you get to take that uh reveals some of that. And then from there on you’ll be on my mailing list, and I send things out several times a week, uh, letting people know when there are classes coming up, or the six-month program can almost start anytime somebody’s ready because I let you fit into the current groups that I’m in. But the easiest thing, just the website, tonilomata.com. There’s loads of things on the website as well. There’s a blog, there are explanations of all the courses. You can spend time you know getting to know my background a lot more there, too. So thank you. Thank you for this. I really you are filled with wisdom, Sylvia, and I I hope your audience appreciates who you are and what you have to offer.
Thank you for that. You know, I prayed for that this morning. I prayed that he would reveal certain things to me, and he did through your interview. We’re all here for a very powerful purpose for those listening. You have you fit into a plan that is far greater than you’ll ever know. I don’t think we’ll understand it until we’re in heaven with him. Like when we’re in our life with you, Tony. I really I think that’s when he like sits there and he tells us just how much impact we had and how much we changed and helped others see their own light. You know, as light warriors out there, we are charged with bringing more people back to him. And it’s it’s a hard road sometimes because people they want to know him. They do, they just don’t understand the concepts until they live it, you know. And and he gently, he’s by far, I think, the most gentle teacher I’ve ever had in my life. He says things to us in a way that that we need it to understand. You know, I’ve I’ve asked him to share with me how have I contributed to a certain circumstance, for example, and he’ll gently remind me, you know, like a parent would in a very loving way, but stern way of like, hey, you know, it doesn’t help when you do this. It doesn’t help when you speak to him harshly, you are contributing to you know, some toxicity in your marriage when X, Y, and Z happens. I he speaks to me in a way that that relationship, there’s unlike any relationship I’ve ever had in my life, and I’ve had a lot in my life. His, you know, I heard it say from a coaching client of mine from the church the other day. This is a young girl, very young, but very wise for her years. And you said, Jesus is the cool guy. I like that description of Christ. I was like, yeah, he kind of raises me. Like he just kind of comes beside you as a friend and he guides you and he hugs you when you’re just like sobbing at your worst. He’s the only one that I could talk to like that. And um, I have coffee chats in the mornings with him every morning, and then but I also say hello to Abba, my father, you know, and I was like, Hi Abba, how are you? You know, and then I’ll turn in my father’s picture. My my earthly father’s picture is behind me as I’m having coffee chats, and I’ll turn to him up. Good morning, Daddy. I know you’re there, and I and I know you’re waiting for me. Um, and I know time is so different in heaven than it is here, and that’s why his patience and his timing is so critical for us not to get ahead of him. Um, I have so enjoyed having you, Tony. You have no idea what your words meant to me this morning. And the Enneagram, I actually have studied that, and it was the only stuff I kept from when I took a master class in 2023 was the Enneagram, because God does this to me when people are speaking to me. He shows me in visions, like papers and things that I’ve seen in my lifetime to remind me, oh no, you know what she’s talking about. You have Wisdom in your head because I gave it to you in 2023. So I know about Enneagrams and the shadow self and the light self and all these all this work. And I believe me, I found myself in that Enneogram very quickly. So I definitely want to work with you and I definitely want to purchase your products. Um, and I will be reaching out to you on all social media.
I’m going to be offering an extensive Enneagram class uh shortly. I haven’t gotten the dates yet, but um I’ll make sure that you’re on the list and you you can hear when they’re coming because it’s powerful to learn. We may lead with one type, but the divine has all the qualities. So we want to learn about all of them and look at where I can strengthen in every single one. And I, you know, constantly there are times that I need the six in my life, there are times that I need being more of a two. And so I’m learning each of those, and it’s been such a gift. And so, yes, I’ll be happy to share that with you.
Of course, and I’ll be the first in line. So, for sure, for that course, for the listeners who release that reveal purpose. Remember Matthew 5.14 to be the light, be the light within you. Just like Tony’s been the light, like I’ve been the light, even in the darkest of chapters, the light is always within us, that voice. But he is always with us and he’s guiding us. We could be spirit-led or we could be flesh driven. It’s up to you, really, whatever choice, because you do have free will. But if you want to produce, if you want to find that peace and that love and that joy, you find it with him, and he’s the one that can guide you to that brighter light. Um, so for those listening, we are coming up the end of our show, and it is Easter weekend. It is one of the most powerful weekends out there for Christians alike. Um, I myself is when I celebrate having a second chance at life, and I don’t take it lightly. And he knows I’ve devoted my life to him and my mission, my work, uh, my time, my tithing. I’ve I’ve done it all with him, and I do it all over again, knowing what I know now. I would go through it because I know that I’ve learned so much from people like Tony, and and I’m so blessed to be able to do this podcast and to write my books and to share my the wisdom I have to share because it’s not mine to to keep for myself, it’s mine to share. That’s what God has asked me to do, um, so that people his people will know that they are not alone, that they are so loved, so loved, so loved that he gave up his only son and he died for us in a very painful death, but he did it because he he knew the joy that waited for him on the other side. And that’s what we can look forward to on our sufferings, our trials, our tribulations here on earth. There is a joy on the other side, and he’s waiting patiently for us to turn to him, turn to that voice, turn to that inner compass, like Tony talked about. Have a beautiful and blessed Easter weekend. Love y’all. Bye now.
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes. We’ll win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.