What happens when the words you’ve built your world around start to break open? Devany and Meredith talk about the courage to rename, the sacred alchemy in disagreement, and how language itself can evolve and heal.

What happens when the words you’ve built your world around… start to break open?

In this episode of The GILY Pod, Devany and Meredith explore how language shapes love, belonging, and who we’re becoming. What began as God, I Love You has evolved into The GILY Pod — a rebrand born from listening, humility, and repair. While God has timelessly been the name for the unnameable Mystery, it’s also a word weighted with harm — used through history to justify control, exclusion, and supremacy.

They share the messy beauty of disagreeing, staying in friendship, and finding a third way forward. It’s a conversation about naming harm without losing reverence and discovering that language itself can be a living, healing thing — if we’re willing to let it change.

A love letter to evolution itself: a reminder that change is the path of growth and a deep longing toward what is most true.

Gentle note: Strong language at times — use care if little ears are nearby.

• Language evolves — words can harm or heal depending on how we hold them.
• Rebrand as repair — changing language can be an act of love.
• Disagreement deepens relationship — staying in connection creates understanding.
• Naming harm begins with listening.
• Love is what makes transformation possible.

“You can rebrand yourself as many times as you f*cking want.” “The most true part of God, I Love You is the I love you part.” “We hold the harm and the hope of the name God.” “One thing we really believe in..The more we love other people, the more we expand in love.” “There is a sacred alchemy in not always agreeing.” “Language is alive; it should keep evolving like we do.”

Rebrand — A conscious reshaping that reflects present-tense truth and integrity. Repair — Acknowledging harm and making amends through care. Third Way — When two perspectives stay in tension, something new emerges. Language as Living — Words grow alongside us, reflecting change and awareness.

The Prophetess — Shalon Harkin (Closing Reading) → shalonharkin.com The Universal Christ — Richard Rohr → cac.org/books/the-universal-christ The Wisdom Jesus — Cynthia Bourgeault → cynthiabourgeault.org/books Untamed — Glennon Doyle → glennondoyle.com/books/untamed The Way of Integrity — Martha Beck → marthabeck.com

Thomas Keating — Centering Prayer → contemplativeoutreach.org Gurdjieff / Ouspensky — The Fourth Way → The Church of Conscious Harmony

We share from lived story and practice. This isn’t medical, mental-health, or legal advice. Use your own discernment and seek professional support as needed. Care for yourself as you listen. Take what resonates; leave the rest.

Come Home to Your Center (Illumine Within) — Devany walks with those reclaiming spirituality through the body, love, and deep listening. Join 1:1 sessions, circles, and shared practice at illuminewithin.com.

Energetic Support (Hibernate Healing) — Meredith offers energy work and spiritual guidance in Austin or online. (Rebrand in progress; sessions available now.) sparklecirclehealing.com

In this bonus episode of GILY, Devany and Meredith offer a warm welcome — in the old English sense: you are a desired guest. From that same spirit of hospitality, they share their stories. Meredith moves from evangelical certainty through postpartum collapse to energy work, the Fourth Way, and a living, clear-eyed Christianity. Devany reflects on her contemplative roots, a season inside evangelicalism after grief, and how stillness, Centering Prayer, and decolonially informed somatics continue to guide her home to her own voice.

Together they trace the spiral of deconstruction — funny, humbling, sometimes self-righteous — reclaim Jesus beyond punitive theology, and name their shared lens: we start where it hurts and stay for the healing — mind, body, spirit, community, and land. We hope you feel welcome in your own story, too.

Gentle note: Strong language at times — use care if little ears are nearby.

• Welcome = desired guest — your story and questions belong here.
• Deconstruction is a spiral — certainty can feel safe; humility keeps us awake.
• The body is a teacher — pain and fatigue can guide us home.
• Stillness steadies — contemplation widens compassion.
• Many paths, one Source — Love runs through them all.

“We’re done tidying our souls for anyone.” “I had been borrowing someone else’s motherhood.” “All of you is welcome here — your tears, your growls, your weird movements.” “I stopped outsourcing certainty — and started listening in.” “If you want to hear yourself, turn up the silence.”

• Contemplation — A long, loving look at the real; stillness that widens perception.
• Fourth Way (Gurdjieff/Ouspensky) — Awakening through the intellectual, emotional, and moving centers — monks in the world, not the monastery.
• Self-Observation / Non-Identification / Self-Remembering — Noticing thoughts, loosening attachment to them, remembering essence.
• Somatics — From the Greek soma (living body). A way of understanding and practicing life through the body as an intelligent, adaptive, interdependent system — shaped by family, community, culture, land, Spirit, and relationship. Modern somatic practice is deeply informed by the survival wisdom of Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized peoples who have used body-based knowing to endure, heal, and resist oppression.

Devany’s somatic journey has been shaped by Sonya Renee Taylor, Staci K. Haines, Dra. Rocío Rosales Meza, and mentor Marisa Guadalupe, with learning also supported by The Embody Lab.

• Deconstruction — Unraveling belief systems and power structures; humility over certainty.

We also mention Thomas Keating (Centering Prayer), the Fourth Way, Four Winds/Andean-informed teachings, Human Design, and The Trevor Project (LGBTQ+ youth crisis support).

• The Universal Christ — Richard Rohr
• The Wisdom Jesus — Cynthia Bourgeault
• Untamed — Glennon Doyle
• The Way of Integrity — Martha Beck

🌱 A Gentle Reminder We share from lived story and practice. This isn’t medical, mental-health, or legal advice. Use your own discernment and seek professional support as needed. Care for yourself as you listen. Take what resonates; leave the rest.

Invitations

• Come Home to Your Center (Illumine Within) — Devany’s Centering Circles offer stillness, somatic grounding, Centering Prayer, and reflective listening. Explore offerings at illuminewithin.com.

Energetic Support (Hibernate Healing) — Meredith offers energy work and spiritual guidance in Austin or online. (Rebrand in progress; sessions available now.) www.sparklecirclehealing.com