God Doesn’t Plant Seeds He Doesn’t Intend to Grow: Breaking Approval Addiction & Learning to Lead (Ep. 188)God Doesn’t Plant Seeds He Doesn’t Intend to Grow: Breaking Approval Addiction & Learning to Lead (Ep. 188)
Genuine Life Recovery with Jodie Stevens
Host Jodie Stevens and relationship coach Lionel Moses talk about approval addiction, imposter syndrome and self-leadership through a Christian lens. Their conversation links love, humility and vulnerability with healthier relationships and more grounded recovery.
53:56•17 Apr 2026
Breaking Approval Addiction: Self‑Leadership, Faith and Real Connection
Episode Overview
- Loving yourself is essential; without self-love, leadership and relationships are driven by insecurity and fear.
- People-pleasing and approval addiction create an imposter self, making it impossible to feel genuinely loved.
- Humility and vulnerability are core parts of healthy leadership, whether in recovery, family, work or faith communities.
- Painful “pruning” seasons can strip away false identities and approval addictions, but they clear space for real growth.
- Strong relationships – marriages, friendships or recovery connections – grow like gardens, in soft, honest soil rather than behind hard emotional walls.
“If I don't love myself, I'm going to operate and function out of an insecurity… I'm not giving you the authentic me, and without the authentic me, I will never feel loved by you.”
What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This conversation between host Jodie Stevens and relationship coach and author Lionel Moses zooms in on one that flies under the radar: approval addiction. You’ll hear Lionel connect people-pleasing, imposter syndrome and addiction to a deeper problem – not knowing and loving your true self.
He shares how his own journey, from Navy veteran in Desert Storm to coach and minister, forced him to stop performing for love and start leading from the inside out. As he puts it, leadership isn’t a job title, it’s influence – and that starts with how you treat yourself. Faith and recovery themes run right through the chat.
Lionel talks about seeing himself as a “co-creator” with God, why humility is essential to real leadership, and how pruning painful habits – including approval addiction – can feel brutal but make room for genuine growth. His gardening metaphors from his book *The Marriage Seed* make big ideas feel simple: hard, concrete hearts don’t grow much, but soft, messy soil does.
The episode also looks at relationships in sobriety: why people-pleasing is **not** the same as love, how codependency and childhood trauma feed approval addiction, and why vulnerability and transparency are crucial if you want to feel truly loved rather than loved for an act.
If you’ve ever felt “alone in a crowd”, terrified of being found out, or stuck in unhealthy relationships while trying to stay sober, this honest, faith-filled chat might help you ask a brave question: what would change if the real you finally came out of hiding?
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