Have you ever felt like you’re constantly trying to get it all right?

Like if you could just be a better mom, keep your house cleaner, get your life together, or finally become the woman you think you’re supposed to be, then maybe you’d feel like you were enough?

I know that feeling all too well.

For a long time, I carried impossible expectations, compared myself to other women, and exhausted myself trying to measure up. Somewhere along the way, I began to realize that I was bringing that same mindset into my relationship with God.

I knew He loved me, but I was still living like I had something to prove.

In this episode, I’m sharing how God began to uncover the perfectionism and shame I was carrying, and how He gently taught me to stop striving and start receiving His grace.

We’ll talk about the pressure to have it all together, the guilt that can follow us through motherhood, and what Jesus meant when He invited the weary and burdened to come to Him and find rest in Matthew 11:28–30.

Because God isn’t waiting for you to fix yourself before you come to Him. You don’t have to earn His love.

And you don’t have to be perfect to begin experiencing the freedom of His grace.

A question to sit with this week: What impossible standard are you holding yourself to—and what might it look like to bring that burden to Jesus?

I’m so glad you’re here.

-Kylee Shea

Where was God when the worst things happened to you?

Was He there?

Did He see it? And if He did, why didn't He stop it?

These are questions many of us carry, especially when we've experienced pain we never should have had to endure.

In this episode, I'm sharing a deeply personal part of my story, including the meaning behind the name The Lion and Me.

I'll take you into a special moment in my faith journey—my baptism alongside my husband—and share what I've come to understand about God's presence in the middle of life's darkest valleys.

For a long time, I believed God was real, but I struggled to believe He truly loved me. I thought His love was for everyone else, but somehow, I wasn't enough to receive it.

What I know now has changed the way I see my past, my relationship with God, and the pain I've carried.

This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered where God was in their suffering, questioned His love, or struggled to understand how faith and pain can exist in the same story.

Your pain matters. What happened to you matters. And even in the darkest valley, you are not beyond the reach of God's love.

Thank you for being here and allowing me to share my story with you.

Welcome to The Lion and Me.

If this episode speaks to you, consider sharing it with someone who may need the reminder that they aren't alone.

The Biggest Lie | The Lion and Me with Kylee Shea | Episode 03

For most of my life, I believed God loved other people. I just didn't believe He could love me.

I believed I wasn't good enough. That somehow, I was the exception to His love.

For years, I carried that belief without even realizing how deeply it shaped the way I saw myself, my life, and my relationship with God.

In this episode, I share what began to change when I started therapy, confronted the lies I'd believed about myself, and found myself asking a deeper question: What if the things I believed about God weren't actually true?

As I began working through my past, I also joined a Bible study that challenged the way I had always viewed God. And one night, while holding my baby and crying out to Him, I experienced something that changed me in a way I still struggle to fully put into words.

For the first time, I didn't just believe that God loved me. I felt it.

This wasn't an overnight transformation. It was the beginning of learning who God really was, who He said I was, and what it meant to stop living according to the lies I'd carried for so long.

If you've ever struggled to believe that God truly loves you—not just people like you, but you—I hope this episode reminds you that your story is not beyond His redemption.

Thank you for being here and allowing me to share this part of my story with you! Praying my story brings one person one step closer to God.

--Kylee Shea

What happens when the life you've always wanted finally becomes your reality… but you still don't feel safe?

By the end of my twenties, I had become really good at surviving. I just didn't know that's what I was doing. Then I met the man who would become my husband. For the first time, I experienced a kind of love, kindness, tenderness, and safety I had never known before. We built a home, blended our family, had a baby, and from the outside, my life finally looked like everything I had hoped for. But inside, something was still wrong. When the world shut down during COVID, my anxiety and depression became impossible to ignore. I couldn't understand why I wasn't happy. I had a beautiful life. Why was I still struggling?

Then one day, my teenage daughter looked me in the eyes and said, "Mom, I think you need to go to therapy. I think you need help ."

Those words became a turning point.

Therapy helped me understand that I wasn't weak, ungrateful, or failing. I was still living in survival mode.

My environment was finally safe, but I hadn't learned how to feel safe yet.

In this episode, I share the beginning of that realization — and the moment I started finding the woman underneath the walls I had built to survive.

Because surviving isn't the same thing as living. And sometimes, healing begins when we finally realize we don't have to keep surviving anymore.

---🤍 If this episode spoke to you, please share it with a friend and leave a review — it helps more women find the show.

🎙️ The Lion And Me with Kylee Shea — new episodes weekly