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The podcast "Sealed Places Unlocked" with Shannon Dorsey Moreland focuses on facing hidden wounds, unlocking healing, and moving from silent suffering to fearless leadership. Shannon shares her personal journey of loss, grief, and pretending to be fine until a dream prompts her to unlock sealed places. She emphasizes naming and sharing your pain as the first step to healing and invites listeners to journal their sealed places and seek support. The key takeaway is that naming your sealed place is crucial for unlocking healing and freedom. Welcome to Sealed Places Unlocked, where we name the hidden wounds in our hearts and step boldly into God's healing. I'm Shannon Dorsey Moreland, author, educator, and fellow traveler on this journey from silent suffering to fearless leadership. Today in my very first episode, I will be defining what a sealed place is, why it matters, and how you can begin to unlock the corners of your life that have stayed hidden for too long. Let's begin with a short breathing exercise. Wherever you are, loosen your shoulders, close your eyes if you can, take a slow breath in and let it out fully. Again, in and out. As you keep breathing gently, I'll share one verse to anchor us. He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds, Psalms 147 and 3. With that promise settled, God sees every hurt, even the ones we've tucked away. To give you a backstory about myself, when I was 11, my mother passed away. In this small Louisiana town, grief felt like something you tucked behind a locked door. You didn't talk about it unless you had to. I'm the youngest of seven, and I remember our pastor at the time looked me in my eyes and told me that I have to be strong. So I held on to my tears, cried in secret places, and began pretending I was okay. I remember one day not long after her burial, hiding in the closet, clutching one of her worn shawls and willing the tears to stop. For years, I thought if I stayed busy, being a wife, being a mother, being a sister, a teacher, I could keep that vault shut forever. It wasn't until years later, after my father passed away in 2020, that the door creeped back open. I found myself standing in front of an old photo, and the memories felt like they belonged to someone else. Painful, yes, but also sacred. Fast forward to December 2024, another wave hit. First, my brother-in-law, then my father-in-law in March of 2025, and finally my sister in April 2025. My sister's death was completely unexpected. It felt like the last straw. Those losses piled up, and I had nowhere to put the grief or the questions. I tried journaling, praying, even extra work, but every night I'd wake up with the same ache. It was in the midst of that rough season that God met me in a dream. In the dream, I was in an apartment building with three units. One of the units had been sealed off shut. There was a smell like something was decaying, there was a rodent activity, and it was clear that something was wrong. I complained, the other tenant complained, but we couldn't get in, and we couldn't get any results. Days passed in the dream, and suddenly I saw my sister in the dream, and just like in real life, she had passed away. Then more layers of grief came into that dream, but in the dream, I started doing something. I walked around the grounds of the apartment building, I placed my hands on the walls, and I started praying, I started declaring, I started reclaiming that space, and finally someone opened up that sealed apartment and started clearing it out. That's when I knew this wasn't just a dream. It was a calling, a divine prompt to write, to speak, and to help others unlock places they've sealed shut out of fear, pain, or survival. So what is a sealed place? A sealed place is any corner of your life you've tucked away, you've locked it away, you've tried to hide from yourself and from others. A sealed place could be a wound you refuse to revisit because it still hurts too much, a mistake you replay over and over in your mind, a shame that you believe defines you. When you seal it, when you seal that place, you think you're gaining what feels like control, but you're losing access to the healing, the growth, and the purpose that is wrapped within that pain. Here's how my own journey of unsealing began after that dream. I named the pain. I wrote down every thought I'd been too afraid to say out loud. I'm overwhelmed by these losses. I don't know how I'm going to carry on. I feel abandoned. I invited community. I shared with a friend and my husband. Having them listen to my moments shattered my isolation. I then claimed purpose as I repented of pretending that I was fine for all of those years. I sensed God calling me to help others do the same, which birthed the book, Unlocking the Sealed Places, A Call to Leadership, Healing, Restoring, and Stepping Boldly into Your Purpose, and now this podcast. By the end of writing the book, I wasn't simply over my grief. I was being transformed by it because this is truly a journey. What had been sealed was becoming a source of empathy, authenticity, and unshakable hope in my purpose. So what's the key takeaway for episode one? The key takeaway is a sealed place must first be named before it can be unlocked. Naming opens the door. Naming invites truth. Let's tie that to another promise from scripture. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free, John 8, 32. When you name your sealed place, when you say out loud, this is my grief, this is my anger, this is my shame, you're stepping into freedom. Here's your action for this week. Find a quiet moment. Five to 10 minutes is long enough. Journal one sealed place you've been avoiding. Let out the words you've never said. I'm afraid that I've hidden that I, or I don't know how to. Then pray out loud, ask God to meet you there in that sealed place and allow him to bring his healing light. If you're comfortable enough, you can share it with someone you trust, a friend, a mentor, or you can join my private Facebook group. You don't have to unpack it all, but saying it out loud is the first turn of the key. Thank you for joining me on this first step toward unlocking.